Alcohol Facts for Women

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 60 percent of women from the ages of 18 to 44 drink alcohol and approximately 30 percent of those are binge drinkers. The CDC defines binge drinking as consuming "five or more drinks on a single occasion, for men, or four or more drinks on a single occasion, for women, generally within about 2 hours." Moderate to heavy alcohol use can have devastating effects on a woman's body.

Function

• Owing to a woman's body chemistry and structure, it cannot metabolize alcohol the way a man's body can. Rather, the female body absorbs a higher amount it, which effectively means that women have higher blood levels of alcohol than do men of similar stature who drink the same quantity of alcohol. Therefore, alcohol takes effect faster and lasts longer in women's bodies.

Health Issues

• Because women are more affected by alcohol, their health is too. Women who are heavy drinkers put themselves at greater risk than men for a multitude of health problems. The risk of liver disease is higher, the potential for brain damage is greater and appears more quickly, the risk of heart damage is higher and the risk for developing many types of cancers is increased.

Considerations

• Drinking alcohol leads to impaired judgment and is associated with higher incidents of sexual assault. This is especially true for young women at colleges and universities. Women who drink heavily have been known to practice unsafe sex while intoxicated, which leads to a greater chance of contracting a sexually transmitted disease and becoming pregnant.