Researchers looked at pain around the world and across the human lifespan, finding steepest rise happens before age 55
Women report suffering more pain than men, a major new global study has found.
That was true for all types of pain the researchers measured, and comes amid continuing concern about the gender pain gap, which means women are less likely to be prescribed the pain relief they need.
Researchers from all over the world carried out “one of the largest harmonization efforts in pain epidemiology to date”. Data was collected from more than 6 million people from 118 countries from 1990 to 2025, and included people from five years old to more than 100.
The research, published in Nature Medicine, looked at how pain, as the leading global cause of disability, was distributed both around the world and across the human lifespan.
Not that I entirely disagree with your point, but if we’re going to talk about being put off of reporting, then how about centuries of women being dismissed by medical professionals?
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I understand your counterpoint, however has that behavior led to more women not sharing their pain or being louder about their pain to get past the dismissiveness? Do both sexes just bottle it up?
I think both just bottle it up. Men because they are conditioned to be stoic and women because they are conditioned to not be a bother. Most women are in pain a few days every single month but how many women do you know that go around telling everyone about it?
when you stub your toe really badly, or roll your ankle. do you tell everyone about it, or keep it to yourself?
I can’t recall ever telling anyone how I stubbed my toe.
Is that because it’s not painful or because they think it would be embarrassing though?