Men may need more Botox than women to smooth those wrinkles

Men who have been disappointed with the wrinkle-smoothing results of their Botox injections may not be getting enough of the muscle-relaxing drug.

They need a higher dose to get the same results as women, Botox pioneer Dr. Alastair Carruthers told physicians recently at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology. And unlike women, whose furrowed brows seem to reach a plateau in smoothness, the greater the dose of Botox a man gets, the better the result and the longer it lasts.

Carruthers injected 80 men and 80 women at seven sites along the forehead. The women received a total of either 10, 20, 30 or 40 units of botulinum toxin type A; the men received 20, 40, 60 or 80 units. There was a great difference in results between the women who received 10 units of Botox and those who received 20 units, but larger doses didn’t improve the results or the duration.

In men, the muscle-relaxing results got better with each increasing dose and lasted longer. At six months, 40% of the men who got 80 units and 25% of those receiving 40 and 60 units still had smooth brows.

This study also showed that the higher doses of Botox were safe in men. Those who received 80 units had no adverse effects. “We still don’t know what the upper limit is in men,” says Carruthers, a clinical professor of dermatology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

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Dianne Partie Lange