MEN’S blood vessels contract more easily than women’s.
A team led by Adviye Ergul at the University of Georgia in Athens took veins
left over from heart surgery. They added endothelin-1, a bloodborne peptide that
makes vessels contract.
Men’s veins contracted twice as much as those of women (Journal of
Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, vol 285, p 511). The team also
found that men have five times as many endothelin-1 receptors. Some new drugs
are designed to lower blood pressure by blocking endothelin-1 receptors, so they
may not work as well for women as for men.
