Alcohols health effects: What you need to know

For women in particular, there is a very fine line between healthful and harmful drinking—one that is easy to cross. While moderate drinking is defined as no more than seven drinks a week and no more than three on any given day, those levels aren’t set in stone. As of 2021,  29.5 million people aged 12 and older had an alcohol use disorder in the past year. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has information on how alcohol impacts your health.

Why Do Women Face Higher Risks?

Prenatal alcohol exposure can cause children to experience physical, cognitive, and behavioral problems, any of which can be components of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Drinking during pregnancy can also increase the risk for preterm labor. Studies show that women start to have alcohol-related problems sooner and at lower drinking amounts than men and for multiple reasons.3 On average, women weigh less than men. Also, alcohol resides predominantly in body water, and pound for pound, women have less water in their bodies than men.

Adolescence

Because women become addicted to alcohol more easily than men, drinking even moderately can be a slippery slope. In fact, about half of all cases of alcoholism in women begin after age 59. Women are more likely than men to suffer alcohol-induced brain damage, such as loss of mental function and reduced brain size.

Older adulthood.

However, a fullunderstanding of the patterns of alcohol use by gender across the entire span of thelife-course, from initiation in adolescence to post-retirement, is needed to fullyinform the epidemiology of alcohol use by gender in the United States. A substantial gap remains in the literature for rigorous studies thataddress both historical and developmental variation. Most of our understanding oftrends in drinking among women, especially among adults, is based on relativelyshort historical windows and broad age categories. Among studies that begin todisentangle age groups, cover longer historical periods, and disaggregate variationdue to age, period, and cohort, an array of insights emerges about specific adultage groups at most risk. While numerous studies have focused on historical declines in adolescentdrinking, few studies have focused on gender differences in alcohol consumptionamong older adults.

• The reasonsfor decreased adolescent drinking are likely multi-fold.
• Drinking during pregnancy can also increase the risk for preterm labor.
• Women tend to develop alcohol-related diseases and other consequences of drinking sooner than men, and after drinking smaller cumulative amounts of alcohol.

Three studies showed a slownarrowing of gender differences in current drinking, binge drinking, and DSM-IV AUDamong 26–34 year-olds and 45–64 year-olds, due in large part toincreases in women’s drinking (Keyes et al.,2011; Schulenberg et al., 2018;White et al., 2015). Women are more vulnerable than men to alcohol’s effects, even after drinking smaller amounts. Heavy drinking can lead to increased Women and Alcoholism risk of health problems such as liver disease, brain damage, and breast cancer. Women are as likely as men to recover from alcohol dependence, but women may have more difficulty gaining access to treatment. Alcohol misuse at an early age increases the risk of developing AUD. Genetics or a family history of alcohol misuse increases that risk as well.