(NEWS.COM.AU) 19 March 2008:

Maybe mom really did have eyes in the back of her head.

A recent study has shown that women with children are more responsive and visually aware than women without children. Lab tests in rats have shown “The flow of estrogen promotes neuron growth and enhances the plasticity of the brain,” according to Professor Craig Kinsley, a neuroscientist at the University of Richmond. The professor said, “As a result, mothers in our animal models have better vision, coordination and memory, stronger survival instincts, and go about their tasks more efficiently than non-mothers.”

These benefits make sense when considered it’s a mother’s main job and biological imperative to protect their children until they are old enough to reproduce, thus perpetuating the human race.

(NEWS.COM) 19 March 2008:

Little research is done on the effect of illicit drugs: the powers that be are insistent that the effects must be terrible, thus justifying the illegality. Further, any research has to contend with the fact that people are indulging in a habit which is, after all, illegal.

But such work can be done and a recent study has shown that women are much more sensitive to the effects of Ecstasy than men are: higher highs and more depression on the downside.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: over and above the differences in body weights and blood volumes, women are more sensitive to both alcohol and prescription drugs.

The thinking is that it’s either a difference in the way that they are all three metabolized, or perhaps the way in which estrogen amplifies the effects.

(INDEPENDENT) 28 January 2008:

It’s well known that men (in general) are better at spatial tasks, women at those requiring empathy or emotional intelligence. Another way of putting this (although it’s an analogy, not a description) is that men work on testosterone, women on estrogen.

In this analogy the testosterone leads to the puffing and showing off to which men are prone, while women work together better when in groups.

Author Fay Weldon says that men get dumber in groups (just look at Iraq) while women become more intelligent in groups (women’s self help groups in Africa).

(CNN.COM) 15 May 2007:

While male breast cancer is rare, there have been no improvements in survival rates for men in the past 30 years. Treatments are based on what is known about female breast cancer.  Among men whose cancer didn’t spread to the lymph nodes, the average survival time was six years, while women with the same diagnosis survived an average of 15 years. More research is necessary, including research on the female breast cancer drug tamoxifen.  It blocks the ability of estrogen to grow breast tumors, and it’s not clear how the drug affects male breast cancer.

(THE DAILY TELEGRAPH) 5 February 2007

Researchers at the US National Institute of Mental Health have found that the monthly cycle of estrogen and progesterone through the female brain have an impact upon women’s enjoyment of certain things. The hormones make the pleasure center of the brain more sensitive to certain stimuli. This helps to explain a number of things, like why women are less prone to schizophrenia and their reactions to certain drugs varies over the month.

One further important question is also answered: sensitivity to the pleasures of chocolate peak at the same time as those to sex. Men have always wondered they we are urged to buy chocolate for loved ones and now we know.

(AP) 29 May 06:

Lung cancer acts differently in women than in men, and major new studies are exploring if estrogen is a key reason – and whether harnessing the hormone might help fight the No. 1 cancer killer.

However all this gender-based research turns out, pharmacologist Jill Siegfried hopes it raises more awareness that lung cancer is a threat to women.

“Right now, the average woman goes in to her doctor and says, ‘I have a cough’ or something, and they’ll just assume it’s an infection or some noncancerous process,” Siegfried says. “When really, they ought to get a chest X-ray … much sooner to rule out lung cancer. Because they may have it.”

(ACTA OTO-LARYNGOLOGICA) Jan 2006:

Is the female sex steroid estrogen the key to preserved hearing in the aging human? The proof isn’t incontrovertible, but hearing loss is more profound in elderly males than females. Menopausal women who are administered hormone replacement therapy have slightly better hearing than those who are not. Knowing how sex steroids can alter hearing ability may give researchers important clues as to how estrogen can preserve hearing in both males and females..