One of Andrew Novick’s go-to stories when explaining sex differences in mental health to psychiatry students involves an archaeological find of a large cache of dinosaur bones at the bottom of a wide ravine.
After further investigation, scientists realized that every skeleton was that of an adolescent male.
“The question then is why? said Novick, MD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “The obvious speculation is that it was only the adolescent males who were dumb enough to think that they could jump across the ravine,” Novick said, pointing to testosterone, the male-dominant sex hormone, and its link to risky behaviors.
“The lesson here is that the effects of sex are rather important in shaping behavior.”
With statistics showing women suffer from depression at twice the rate of men, Novick works to uncover reasons behind the gap at the Ludeman Family Center for Women’s Health Research at CU Anschutz. The difference in sex steroid levels – with estrogen, progesterone and testosterone being the “big three” – plays a key role in many mental health sex disparities, he said.
“While mood disorders are most commonly found in females, things like autism and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) very much swing toward males.”
Novick, a reproductive psychiatrist with the Colorado Women’s Behavioral Health and Wellness clinic, shares more about his work and the hormonal-related mental health differences women face in the following Q&A.
Mood disorders that can affect women more often than men include:
- Major depressive disorder
- Anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder
- Bipolar II disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder