The problem of medicating women like the men: Conceptual discussion of menstrual cycle-dependent psychopharmacology

Sun Kyoung Yum, Sun Young Yum, Tak Kim

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    While hormonal changes during the ovulatory cycles affect multiple body systems, medical management, including medication dosing remains largely uniform between the sexes. Little is known about sex-specific pharmacology in women. Although hormonal fluctuations of the normal menstruating process alters women’s physiology and brain biochemistry, medication dosing does not consider such cyclical changes. Using schizophrenia as an example, this paper illustrates how a woman’s clinical symptoms can change throughout the ovulatory cycle, leading to fluctuations in medication responses. Effects of sex steroids on the brain, clinical pharmacology are discussed. Effective medication dose may be different at different phases of the menstrual cycle. Further research is needed to better understand optimal treatment strategies in reproductive women; we present a potential clinical trial design for examining optimal medication dosing strategies for conditions that have menstruation related clinical fluctuations.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)127-133
    Number of pages7
    JournalTranslational and Clinical Pharmacology
    Volume27
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2019 Dec

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2019 Tak Kim.

    Keywords

    • Clinical trial design
    • Drug dose
    • Menstrual cycle
    • Schizophrenia
    • Sex steroids

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Pharmacology (medical)

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