Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 24, 1994 TAG: 9405250012
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
According to researchers, men and women shouldn't be compared when looking at the health risks of alcoholic beverages.
While men generally consume more alcohol than women, emerging research shows that women are suffering far greater consequences from drinking.
Decades of surveys have shown that male alcoholics outnumber female alcoholics by about 3-1. And many more men than women undergo treatment for problem-drinking. Based on these facts, both media images and scientific studies of problem-drinking have tended to focus on men.
That is changing, however, as new studies raise a plethora of issues specific to women, according to several researchers recently attending a three-day American Psychological Association meeting on women's health.
``We have paid way too little attention to gender differences in substance abuse and prevention,'' said Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
For example, research has shown that alcohol is metabolized differently in women and has a stronger impact on a woman's body than a man's.
In addition, even light to moderate alcohol consumption might influence the rate of some diseases that are more prevalent in women, such as breast cancer, osteoporosis and depression. Alcohol use can also affect pregnancies and the health of infants born to mothers who drink.
Finally, among heavy drinkers - usually defined as 14 or more drinks a week - alcohol causes physical ailments, such as liver disease, far quicker in women. Yet female alcoholics say they have a harder time getting treatment while researchers report that they know little about how women fare in treatment or what approaches best help them recover.
This negative portrait is leading health experts to rethink their strategies for advising women about alcohol consumption and treating problem-drinkers.
Studies on drinking traditionally compare women to men. And because women drink on fewer occasions and consume fewer drinks, they often appear at much lower risk for problems than men.
``But there have been a lot of questions about these studies. It's actually difficult to make any comparisons between men and women,'' said Thomas Harford, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The gender differences begin with the fact that women do not tolerate alcohol as well as men. Women have more body fat and less body water, allowing alcohol to move into the bloodstream faster. Moreover, women appear to have less of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, which metabolizes alcohol in the stomach. Because of this deficiency, ``more alcohol is getting into the system and more is getting to the liver,'' said Dr. Mary Dufour of the NIAAA.
by CNB