Friday, Feb. 21, 1997

Women drinkers risk more than hangovers

By ANNE BOYD
Collegian Staff Writer

When it comes to alcohol, women are not quite equal to men.

Carla Spagnoletti (senior, premedicine) and Jenny Zelley (senior, horticultural) drink beer on the patio of Cafe 210 West, 210 West College Ave. The two are old friends and were drinking together after not seeing each other for months. (Collegian Photo / Illan Sherman - click for full size image)

While it is common knowledge that women generally have a lower tolerance of alcohol, many may not know why that is or what it means to the female body.

In addition to getting drunk faster, research shows that alcohol consumption puts women at higher risk for breast cancer and liver damage, among other detrimental effects.

"Drinking during a woman's earlier years has the greatest effect in promoting breast cancer," said Charles S. Fuchs, assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, who published a study on women and alcohol in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1995.

Although cancer develops over a long period of time, the late teens and early 20s are the most vulnerable period because tissue growth is highest, Fuchs said.

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Different tolerance levels between genders is not just because of lower body weight. Women metabolize alcohol less efficiently than men because the female body has less alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), the enzyme that interacts with alcohol in the stomach before it enters the blood stream.

This results in higher blood alcohol concentrations over a shorter period of time, said Chris Dubbs, research specialist at the Pennsylvania Substance Abuse and Health Information Center.

What this translates into is a higher vulnerability to liver damage.

"Women alcoholics have a higher rate of cirrhosis (of the liver) than men (alcoholics)," Fuchs said.

Fuchs' study examined the possibility of beneficial effects of light-to-moderate alcohol consumption for women. While light-to-moderate drinking among men is thought to reduce overall mortality rates, primarily due to reduced risks of coronary heart disease, the same level of alcohol consumption among women is more complicated by the increased risk of breast cancer and cirrhosis.

Despite myth, it is only women who are at higher risks of coronary heart disease who might benefit from moderate drinking, Fuchs said. These women will benefit more from reducing other risk factors, such as cigarette smoking and obesity, he said.

When females consume one to two drinks a day, their risk of developing breast cancer increases by 20 to 40 percent. More than two drinks a day on average increases the risk of dying of breast cancer by 67 percent, Fuchs said.

But the college female who consumes alcohol typically engages in binge drinking on the weekend, as opposed to drinking a few drinks on a daily basis. This raises serious questions for researchers.

While no one has studied these issues with respect to binge drinking, Fuchs said research is under way.

HealthWorks on campus sponsors a program, "Women and Alcohol" to educate students about the social and physical implications of alcohol use.

"We emphasize what happens when you are drinking, not so much the long-term effects," said Katie Yavorka, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs educator for HealthWorks.

Women may not know that their menstrual cycle affects alcohol consumption or that the birth control pill increases the rate of alcohol absorption, Yavorka said.

"It's much easier to get drunk right before your period," she said.

The program also points out that women who drink heavily have more gynecological problems, greater risk of developing alcohol-related diseases and are more likely to deal with infertility, miscarriages, still birth and fetal alcohol syndrome.