March is Women’s History Month. What better time to empower women with knowledge to live healthy lives!
Here are some facts about women and alcohol.
Women are drinking more
Alcohol adversely affects every part of the body from our brains to our hearts, our breasts, and our bones. Historically, prevalence of alcohol use among women was less than men. However, the gap between alcohol use in men and women has narrowed a lot in the last 20 years.1 With it, the rate of serious alcohol-related health effects among women is increasing at alarming rates. As an example, the occurrence of alcohol-related liver disease among young women increased 240% over a 25-year period.2
Alcohol is more dangerous for women
With lower amounts of alcohol, consumed less frequently, over a shorter period of time, women experience more rapid progression to serious alcohol-related physical, psychological and social consequences compared to men.3
Women having worse consequences with less alcohol consumption is known as telescoping. The physiologic basis behind telescoping is that for a given amount of alcohol consumed, women’s bodies have greater exposure to alcohol than men do. More exposure means greater harm. If men and women drink the same amount of alcohol, a woman’s blood alcohol level will be higher. This is because women’s bodies are different. The rate of alcohol absorption through the GI tract is higher (more gets into the bloodstream). Women have lower volume of distribution making it more concentrated. They also have less lean body mass, and they remove alcohol from the body slower than men.
Because of these differences, every drink consumed by women will have a higher blood alcohol level. This leads to greater physiologic exposure and greater harm compared to men. Using liver disease as an example again, for the same amount of alcohol consumed, women have a higher risk of developing cirrhosis (relative risk of 17 in women compared to 7 in men)4 and faster progression to cirrhosis (20 years for women compared to 35 years for men).5
Telescoping affects all organ systems
For example, compared to men, women are more likely to experience alcohol-related:
- Heart disease such as atrial fibrillation, heart attack and stroke6
- Memory loss and dementia7
- Sleep and mood disturbances
- Osteoporosis
Alcohol and breast cancer
- The risk of breast cancer increases by 7-10% for every 10g of alcohol consumed each day. A standard drink of alcohol is 14g8
- Women who have 2-3 standard drinks per day have 20% greater risk of developing breast cancer compared to those who abstain9
Alcohol is one of the few modifiable risk factors for breast cancer. We do not have a say in our genetics, but we can make decisions about alcohol use.
Despite this increased risk for women, society often sends women messages that alcohol is necessary to cope daily life with things like “mommy juice” memes and marketing purses with wine spouts. These are meant in good fun, but they decrease awareness of the real risk alcohol poses for women.
Knowledge is Power!
Empowering women to make decisions about their health.
Dr. Megan McCarren, MD, FASAM is a Board-certified internist and addiction medicine specialist at Saint Alphonsus, Boise.
This blog is part of a series of articles about alcohol consumption. Be sure to read the article about Alcohol and Afib and Alcohol and Cancer.
1. BMJ Open. 2016; 6(10): e011827. Published online 2016 Oct 3. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-011827
2. Doycheva, I. et al. . Dig Dis Sci 62, 1373–1380 (2017). https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/10.1007/s10620-017-4492-3
3. ASAM Essentials of Addiction Medicine,3rd Edition, page 219
4. Becker U et al. Hepatology. 1996;23(5):1025-1029
5. Poynard T et al J Hepatol. 2003;38(3): 257-265
6. Nat Rev Cardiol. 2016 Apr 7;13(6):321–332. doi: 10.1038/nrcardio.2016.45
7. Sara Jo Nixon et al. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, Volume 70,2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2023.101079.
8. Alcohol Res. 2020; 40(2): 11.. doi: 10.35946/arcr.v40.2.11
9. https://www.komen.org/breast-cancer/risk-factor/alcohol-consumption/