Evidence that 'women are slightly more sensitive than men',

Are women more sensitive than men to 2-propanol and m-xylene vapours? Ernstgard L., Gullstrand E., Lof A Johanson G. Occupational & Environmental Medicine 2002; 59:759-767.

Abstract available:click here

This paper from scientists at the Karolinska Institute and the National Institute for Working Life in Sweden, set out to examine differences between the sexes in terms of acute health effects following exposure to solvent vapours. A total of 56 men and women were exposed to 150 ppm 2-propanol and 50 ppm m-xylene for periods of two hours. A variety of physical measures of irritancy and health effects were used ranging from blinking frequency, pulmonary function, inflammatory markers in nasal lavage and colour vision abilities. A self-reported scale of ten symptom questions was also employed to gauge the effect of exposure. The paper reports that nearly all symptom ratings increased during solvent exposure when compared to control exposure. However, no significant effects of solvent exposure were seen on pulmonary function in men. Women showed irritant effects on pulmonary function for xylene but not 2-propanol exposure. Inflammatory markers, blinking frequency and measures of nasal volume all showed no significant changes due to exposure. Poorer colour vision was reported by both men and women following exposure to 2-propanol and men following exposure to xylene and this tends to support other recent studies showing that solvent exposure can lead to colour vision damage. Strangely, women exposed to xylene tended to perform better at the test. While this paper suggests that women experience greater symptoms and have measurably worse pulmonary function than men following solvent exposure, there are many conflicting trends and few statistically significant results. When carrying out such a battery of tests (ten symptom questions, ten pulmonary measures, four inflammatory markers, two measures of nasal condition, blinking frequency and colour vision tests, at two or more time points for two solvents), we should remember that a p value of 0.05 would, by statistical chance, be found in 1 in 20 tests. The wide degree of natural variability in factors such as inflammatory markers and blinking reflexes makes a study like this even more difficult. As the paper acknowledges, further investigations with larger study numbers would be required to tease out the true differences between the sexes in terms of their response to solvents. The plausability of men or women being more or less susceptible to the effects of solvent may lie in the possible sex differences in genetic polymorphisms. Research has indicated that some people with particular types of polymorphisms of enzymes involved in the detoxification of solvents, such as Glutathione S- Transferase mu 1 (GSTM1) and Glutathione S- Transferase theta 1 (GSTT1), may be more prone to solvent-induced chronic toxic encephalopathy. It would be interesting to re-analyse the study's results in terms of genetic polymorphisms and see if those reporting increased symptoms or the greatest decrements in lung function had particular enzyme types.

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Review by Sean Semple, Department of Environmental & Occupational Medicine, University of Aberdeen.

The views and opinions expressed in the text are solely of the review author

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