MOST OF THE THINGS WOMEN DONT KNOW ABOUT THEIR BODY

Bad news first: Because of hormonal changes, women
lose collagen in the skin much faster than men. But take
heart—regardless of how rapidly women’s skin ages,
men still tend to look older
1. Vaginas and sharks have something in common (no,
it’s not teeth).
Natural vaginal lubricant is composed of sweat, sebum,
cervical mucus, exfoliated cells, urea, acetic and lactic
acids, complex alcohols, ketones and (here’s the kicker)
squalene. Ever heard of it? This organic compound isn’t
exclusive to humans—it’s also found in the liver of
sharks. And now for something you didn’t know
aboutsharks’ bodies: Squalene derived from shark liver
oil is sometimes added to moisturizers and skin
creams, where it acts as an emollient. What’s more,
recent studies cited by the American Cancer Society
have found that in the lab, shark-derived squalene
seemed to protect normal human cells from the
detrimental effects of chemotherapy drugs without
inhibiting the drugs’ effect on cancer cells.
2. You listen with both sides of your brain.
Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine
used fMRI machines to monitor brain activity while men
and women listened to a passage from a John Grisham
novel. While most of the men showed activity
exclusively on the left side of the brain (typically
associated with listening and speech), most of the
women showed additional activity on the right side
(associated with creativity and expressiveness). This
could be why women are usually credited with “hearing”
what’s left unsaid in a conversation.
3. In photos, we tend to look younger than men.
Bad news first: Because of hormonal changes, women
lose collagen in the skin much faster than men. But take
heart—regardless of how rapidly women’s skin ages,
men still tend to look older, says Patricia Barnes-
Svarney, the author of Why Do Women Crave More Séx
in the Summer? This is because men’s skin is thicker
and more likely to show facial lines and age spots and
also because they subject it to the often-daily trauma of
shaving as well as chemical baths of aftershave and
astringent. On top of that, men have their own epidermal
challenges to contend with: Testosterone can make their
complexions look slick and oily.
4. Our hormones can help us schedule our dentist
appointments.
If you need a root canal, pull out your calendar. Estrogen
makes us prone to dry sockets in the mouth, which is
when a blood clot becomes dislodged from the hole
where a tooth has been pulled, exposing the bones and
nerves underneath. When a dry socket becomes infected,
it hurts like crazy. To avoid ever experiencing this kind
of pain, Barnes-Svarney suggests scheduling your
extraction during the last week of your menstrual cycle
(days 23 through 28), when estrogen levels are lowest. If
you’re pregnant (or planning on being), you should be
aware that surges of estrogen can also cause gums to
swell and increase the risk of gingivitis, so it’s important
for pregnant women to get their teeth cleaned and
examined every three months or so.
5. Your aversion to spiders may be genetic.
Do spiders make your skin crawl, despite your fondness
for Charlotte’s Web? This may be out of your control.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University measured our
instinctual reactions to insects by rating the expressions
of fear on the faces of 11-month-old babies when they
were shown separate photos of spiders and smiling
people. The female babies tended to spend more time
looking at the human faces than at the spider, while
male babies spent an equal amount of time gazing at
both pictures. Barnes-Svarney says the researchers
hypothesized that women evolved to be wary of spiders,
snakes and other venomous creatures so that they could
protect their vulnerable children at home while the men
were out hunting and gathering.
6. You have a lot of guts.
While women and men have the same basic digestive
plumbing (stomach, liver, gallbladder, colon), the lower
portion of the colon, called the sigmoid, tends to be
longer in women. And of course, women’s lower bodies
are practically bulging with reproductive organs. All of
this means that women have more stuff squeezed into a
smaller space, says Cynthia M. Yoshida, MD, a
gastroenterologist and the author of No More Digestive
Problems. Our digestive systems don’t have as much
room to expand when troubled by excess gas, air or food,
says Yoshida, which is why we are likely to experience
distress in our midsections. (It’s also another
justification for why women deserve more bathrooms,
with more privacy.)
7. Your nether region is unlikely to become tangled or
braidable.
Pubic hair tends to fall out after about three weeks, says
Rankin. That’s just a fraction of the life expectancy of
the hair on your head, which can hang around for up to
seven years.
8. Your obsession with those caramel-colored leather
boots is genetic.
The gene that allows people to perceive the color red is
found only on the X chromosome, and men are more
likely to have mutations that compromise their ability to
distinguish between red and green (making them
technically more Christmas-blind than color-blind). But
researchers have recently discovered that the
combination of a normal gene on one X chromosome and
a mutated one on the other, which occurs in about 40
percent of women, enhances the ability to see a broader
spectrum of hues in the red-orange range. The
scientists, who published their findings in the American
Journal of Human Genetics, say that this amount of
variation, especially one that benefits only one gender, is
unusual in genes (nature usually weeds it out). They
speculate that it may have evolved to help our ancestral
female gatherers to distinguish among berries, foliage
and bugs.
9. You have a wonderfully precocious nose.
Neither gender can claim to have a better sense of
smell, but women are more adept at learning to detect a
scent, says Pamela Dalton, PhD, an olfactory researcher
with the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.
Dalton has shown that women of childbearing age have
an impressive ability to pick up familiar odors at
extremely low levels. After a month of exposure to a
smell, Dalton says women will be able to sniff it out at
1/1,000th of the original concentration. She suspects
this has to do with hormones, because pre-teens and
post-menopausal women didn’t show the same exquisite
sensitivity. Dalton has also found that women are able
to identify when a person—especially their partner—is
stressed out just by smelling his shirt. (Perhaps this
odor detection helps explain why we’re so good at
recognizing when our partner has had a bad day).
10.You can’t handle your alcohol—at least, not as well as
your brother.
And this isn’t just because he’s bigger than you. Women
produce less of the stomach enzyme that breaks down
ethanol. After drinking the same number of pints, women
have a higher blood alcohol level than men—this is true
even when controlling for size differences. The female
body also has less water to dilute alcohol, leading to a
stronger buzz that night…and a dryer mouth and more
intense headache the next morning
11. When you hurt, you really hurt.
Earlier this year, a big study found that when women and
men are suffering from the same health conditions—
cancer, back problems, infectious diseases—women are
significantly more likely to say they’re suffering.
Researchers from Stanford University concluded that
women feel pain more intensely than men, and they said
that while tough-guy stereotypes may account for some
of the differences, another explanation could have to do
with hormones. Previous studies have shown that high
levels of estrogen can trigger the brain’s natural
painkiller system, dampening the “ouch” signals. But
when estrogen levels drop during certain parts of the
menstrual cycle or after giving birth, the system is
thrown off, so women will have a more intense physical
response to whatever’s ailing them at that time.
12. You’re biologically built to weep.
Adult women cry 5.3 times a month; adult men, about
1.4 times, according to William H. Frey II, PhD, a
neuroscientist and author of Crying: The Mystery of
Tears. Some may assume that this is just because
society is more comfortable with a weepy woman than a
melting-down man, but Frey says that there are several
biological factors that make women more likely to shed
tears. At the cellular level, women’s tear glands are
anatomically different from men’s, says Frey (some
studies say they’re bigger), and that’s one of the
reasons we cry so easily. He adds that the hormone
prolactin, well known for its role in lactation, also
regulates the development of the tear glands and aids in
the production of tears. Per Frey, by the time women are
18, they have 50 to 60 percent higher levels of prolactin
in their bloodstream than men do. Great: That’s just in
time for the frustrations of adulthood.
13. Your private parts have a topography similar to the
Blue Ridge mountain range.
Estrogen thickens the vaginal tissue and causes it to
buckle slightly, creating many tiny folds called rugae
(sounds séxy and vaguely European, doesn’t it?). This
provides more surface area for secretions and
lubrication, and it also gives the vagina more stretch
during intercourse and childbirth, explains Daniela Carusi,
MD, the director of general gynecology at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital in Boston, a teaching affiliate of
Harvard medical school. Estrogen decreases in women
who just had a baby, are bréastfeeding or are going
through menopause, causing the ridges to flatten out and
the vaginal tissue to become thinner and drier. This is
one reason women in these life stages may experience
discomfort during séx, says Carusi. (Fortunately,
lubricants and topical estrogen can help.)