Back in college, I'm sure I was considered
a cheap date -- I'd be tipsy after one glass of wine or just
a few sips of a margarita! But lower tolerance isn't the only
difference between men and women when it comes to alcohol. A
new study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and
Experimental Research points to some other interesting sex-specific
consequences of drinking.
RESEARCH RESULTS
The negative impact: On one hand,
the research shows that women are more sensitive to
alcohol's negative effects -- they report worse physical
and mental health functioning than men after drinking the
same amount. "That's because women have lower ratios of water
to fat," explains lead author Carla A. Green, PhD, MPH, of
Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. "Alcohol is
dissolved in body water. Because women have less, they end up
with a higher blood alcohol concentration." This means that
women not only tend to get intoxicated faster, they also suffer
greater incidence of high blood pressure, liver disease, breast
cancer and behavioral problems.
THE UPSIDE
On the other hand, and what surprised
researchers most, was that women also were more sensitive
to alcohol's positive effects. Among the 2,600 women and
3,069 men surveyed, women who drank at light to moderate
levels (one to two drinks two or three times weekly) reported
better physical health and functioning than men with similar
drinking habits. "They seem to have reduced coronary heart
disease, reduced incidence of type 2 diabetes and an increased
sense of well-being," says Dr. Green. "These benefits were
proportionately smaller among men." Moderate-drinking women
also reported better health than women who drank more heavily
and women who didn't drink at all.
The reasons still are not well understood,
according to Dr. Green, but differences in alcohol metabolism
and body composition are one possible explanation. The other
possible explanation has to do simply with number-crunching:
"Because we don't have causal evidence, it's possible that
when women are in bad health, they're more likely to quit
drinking and end up in the abstainer group," Dr. Green says,
which would boost the health statistics of the moderate women
drinkers by default. Research does show that women are more
willing to change their drinking patterns in response
to news about their health.
Either way, Dr. Green is clear on the
finding that "women are more sensitive to the negative
effects of alcohol and may be more sensitive to the
positive." She wouldn't recommend that women take up
drinking if they don't already -- because of the health
risks associated with it -- but if they're going to imbibe,
it should be no more than one drink per day. (For men, the
limit should be two drinks per day.) The US Department of
Agriculture (USDA) and National Institute on Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) define a drink as a 12-ounce
bottle of beer (less than one pint), a five-ounce glass
of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.
The bottom line? Everything in
moderation -- and don't always trust the numbers in
a study. This is good to keep in mind as you head
out to celebrate the holidays.
Carla A. Green, PhD, MPH, research
assistant professor, Oregon Health & Science
University, Portland.
