Women: If you want to quit smoking, you might have better success if you pick the right day of your menstrual cycle to stop. New research shows that women tend to have a greater craving for a cigarette in few days right after their period ends, making it a harder time to quit.
"Taking the menstrual cycle into consideration could help women to stop smoking," said Adrianna Mendrek of the University of Montreal and its affiliated Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Montréal. Mendrek is the lead author on a study of how the menstrual cycle may affect the craving for nicotine. The study was published in Psychiatry Journal.
The days right after ovulation in the middle of the menstrual cycle, called the mid-luteal phase, may be a better time to try to quit smoking. This is the time in the cycle when levels of the hormones estrogen and progesterone are higher.
Most smokers have a hard time quitting. Fewer than one in ten smokers is still not smoking a year after they try to quit. Women take less time than men to become dependent on nicotine and also have a harder time quitting than men, according to the study. "Female rats become addicted more quickly, and are willing to work harder for the same quantity of dose," Mendrek said.
Mendrek and her colleagues studied 15 male smokers and 19 women smokers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The smokers were scanned while they were looking at either pictures designed to make them want to smoke or neutral pictures. They found that the patterns for cravings for the women created by the pictures varied considerably over their menstrual cycle.
However, each smoker is unique and smoking is a complicated behavior. Stress levels, anxiety issues and depression may play a greater role in how difficult it is to smoke than hormonal fluctuations, Mendrek said.
