Women and Alcohol


            There are a number of women’s health issues that are always in the news: pregnancy, hormones, fitness, nutrition
            – just to name a few. What many women haven’t heard is that alcohol is also an important health issue that they
            need to know about. In short, alcohol affects women differently than men. Here are the facts:

• Sixty percent of U.S. women have at least one drink a year.

• Among women who drink, 13 percent have more than seven drinks
  per week.

• Guidelines for Responsible Alcohol Use define moderate drinking as
  no more than one standard drink a day for women.

• Standard drinks include 12-ounces of beer, 5-ounces of wine or
  1.5-ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.

• Drinking more than one drink per day for women can increase the risk
  for motor vehicle crashes, other injuries, high blood pressure, stroke,
                                                                                 violence, suicide and certain types of cancer.

            • An estimated 5.3 million women in the United States drink in a way that threatens their health, safety and
              general well-being.

                  - Physiologically, women tend to have less water in their bodies as compared with their male counterparts;
                    therefore, a woman’s brain and other organs are exposed to more alcohol and to more of the toxic
                    byproducts that result when the body breaks down and eliminates alcohol.

            • Risks of moderate drinking:

                  - Medication interactions – alcohol can interact with a wide
                    variety of medicines, both prescription and over-the-counter

                  - Breast cancer – research suggests that as little as one drink
                    per day can slightly raise the risk of breast cancer

                  - Fetal alcohol syndrome – drinking while pregnant can harm the
                    unborn baby and may cause birth defects

                  - Drinking and driving – it doesn’t take much alcohol to impair a
                    person’s ability to drive, increasing the chance of motor
                    vehicle crashes

                  - Increased risk of becoming alcohol dependent

            • Benefits of moderate drinking:

                  - May lower the risk for coronary heart disease

            • Heavy drinking over the long term is more likely to damage a woman’s health than a man’s, even if the woman
              has been drinking less alcohol or for a shorter length of time.

            • Heavy drinking increases the risk of becoming a victim of violence or sexual assault.



            Source:
            National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism