Smoking Cessation Harder for Women
Women appear to have a tougher time quitting smoking than men, according to researchers at Women’s Health Research at Yale University.
The percentage of men who have given up cigarettes between 1965 and 2006 was 54.5 percent, but the rate of decline among women was less steep, at 47.5 percent.
Consequently, the gap in the percentages of male and female smokers has narrowed. In 1965, slightly more than half of all men smoked, while about a third of women did. Today, 23.3 percent of men smoke, compared with 18.6 percent of women.
We talked to Carolyn Mazure, director of the research program, about why women are not kicking the habit at the same rate as men.
So what does the research show?
Carolyn Mazure: Well, the first thing I want to say is that smoking remains a serious public health issue. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and illness in the U.S.
And why is it harder for women to quit smoking?
It appears as though when men quit smoking, the most prominent symptoms of withdrawal are biological symptoms of craving.
However, we find women are more likely to use cigarettes to manage moods, to deal with stress and to control weight. In other words, women are smoking for different reasons, and if you’re not helping with those … reasons for smoking in your cessation treatment, you wouldn’t necessarily expect your treatment to work.
A good example is the nicotine patch, which often is considered the first line of treatment for smoking. The research data … suggest that women do less well quitting smoking when using the patch than men do, probably because it targets symptoms of craving rather than the symptoms that are more prominent for women.
So this begins to make an argument for gender-specific approaches to smoking cessation. … With the medication Zyban, it appears that women do as well in quitting … as men do. … Zyban can help with mood symptoms. It was originally developed as an antidepressant drug, Wellbutrin. … We do think there is a relationship between depressed mood and smoking.
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