Alcohol Effects Women Differently From Men

If you are a woman and drink alcohol regularly, please read how alcohol effects your body (differently from that of a man).

Alcohol is metabolized differently in women, size does not matter, it physiological.  Women have less of a gene that breaks down alcohol.  The result, woman are at a higher risk of alcohol related diseases than men.

Read Full Miami Herald Article

“An ounce-and-a-half of alcohol is going to be metabolized differently in women than men regardless of their size,” said Eustace.

Take two 135-pound individuals, a man and a woman. Give each a glass of alcohol.

“Women physiologically have less of a chemical called alcohol dehydrogenase. That is the chemical that immediately begins to break alcohol down into a less toxic, less neurobiologic chemical. So when the woman takes that ounce-and-a-half of ethyl alcohol it’ll be metabolized much slower. Now, if they take another ounce-and-a-half an hour later, rather than starting the process over like the men, there’s going to be an accumulative effect.,” Eustace said.

Weight equality aside, still other factors come into play. The “volume of distraction,” Eustace said.

In your body, alcohol likes muscle more than fat or water….

“The same 135-pound person, the male is more likely to have more percentage of body muscle than fat. What that’s important is that alcohol gets distributed in fat and water substances more so than muscle and alcohol dehydrogenase is much more prevalent in muscle tissue than in fat or water. So right away, the male who takes an ounce-and-a-half will start to digest it both in their stomach and in their muscles, whereas in a woman it will be distributed in a larger volume and slower metabolism so the risk of a toxic effect of the drug goes up more in women than men.

And more often, men are bigger than women. “Because of this, there is less distribution of alcohol in the body and because of more fat content women might be exposed to a higher percent of alcohol in the brain compared to men,” Salloum said.

“That’s the physiological and biological reason, it’s not that men are tougher by some macho formula: ‘I can hold my booze and you can’t.’ It isn’t that at all. That would be a sociological mistake,” Eustace said.

The National Institute for Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse estimates that about 5.5 million women drink alcohol at levels that place their health at risk, said Dr. John Eustace, medical director at the South Miami Hospital Addiction Treatment and Recovery Center. Alcohol abuse can result in liver damage, hepatitis, brain disease, breast cancer and heart disease.

The article suggests more than 7 oz of alcohol per week for women, if you are drinking more than that hypnosis can assist you in getting to the underlying issue associate with over-consumption. Read more on stress and alcohol.