Do Women React Differently to Alcohol?
It is no secret that men and women differ in so many aspects. Our approach to problems, organization and expression of emotions all differ.
Besides this, there are physical differences that are quite easy to spot. One of these is the effect of alcohol. A survey was recently conducted where the participants were asked which gender has more trouble handling alcohol. The big majority answered – women. And they were not wrong. Scientists advise that men and women should not drink the same amounts of alcohol. While 3-4 units of alcohol are advisable for men, 2-3 units are recommended to women (You can use unit calculator if needed). We’ll try to explain you why is this and give you several tips on drinking alcohol.
Physical Differences
First of all, we have to explain why alcohol affects women differently. The answer is simply – biology. On average, women weigh much less than men. Alcohol disperses in body water and when you weigh more it is much easier for alcohol to do so. So when drinking, women’s blood alcohol concentration tends to be higher and they are more prone to the effects of alcohol. As a result of this, women’s brain and other organs become more exposed to alcohol. Another difference can be noticed if we compare the effects alcohol has on liver. It takes less alcohol and less time for a woman to develop a liver disease. The same rule applies when we are talking about alcoholic hepatitis. Much research has been done on this topic and the results suggest that women are more prone to develop a disease like this because of the physiological effects women’s reproductive hormone estrogen has.
Risk Factors
There are also factors which may increase the potential abuse with women. Those may be simple biological factors. Another research showed that female twins will have similar drinking habits, much more than male twins. More than 12.000 twins took part in this research and the results showed clear differences. Another difference regards parents’ personalities. For example, antisocial personality in parents can be a trigger for alcoholism with women. The same rule applies to men, yet again on a much lower rate. A woman who starts drinking at a lower age is more likely to become alcohol dependent. In the past, women started to drink much later than men. Today, that difference has almost disappeared.
How Should Women Drink Alcohol?
Of course, this doesn’t mean that women should not drink alcohol at all. They simply have to be more careful with it. In fact, a little glass of wine per day is more than advisable. There are many benefits a glass of wine per day can have for your health. It boosts your memory, helps you build stronger bones and defends you from ovarian woes. There are many different wine specials at the bottle shops in Sydney which may be just perfect for you. It is important to make sure that any alcohol you are drinking is of good quality, especially with wine. As mentioned above, women should not drink more than 2-3 units of alcohol per day, when we are talking about drinking on regular basis. That is somewhere around 13% ABV 175 ml glass of wine per day. Of course, when not drinking regularly, you can drink more than this with absolutely no worries.
The effect of alcohol is just one of the many differences between the genders. Of course, all of this relates only to the majority of women. In some cases, women may handle alcohol even better than men. This depends a lot on weight, physical health and lifestyle.