Women’s bodies are affected differently by alcohol than men’s bodies

It used to be that men were the outsized alcohol drinkers in Western society – perhaps best depicted in popular culture by Don Draper’s Mad Men cronies, who swilled from office stashes of brown liquor, knocked back three-martini lunches and imbibed Old Fashioneds in an after-work pub culture where few women dared tread.

But epidemiologists have noted that the rise of marketing alcohol to women and the changing of gender roles have gradually shifted the booze imbalance. Overall, men are still almost twice as likely as women to binge drink. But that isn’t true for younger people, specifically. In fact, women born between 1991 and 2000 now drink just as much as their male counterparts – and their drinking rates could eventually surpass them.

Women are increasingly suffering from the ill effects of alcohol, too. National data show that the cirrhosis death rate shot up by 57% among women aged 45-64 from 2000-2015 in the US, compared to 21% among men. And it rose 18% in women aged 25-44, despite decreasing by 10% among their male peers. Adult women’s visits to hospital emergency departments for overdosing on alcohol also are rising sharply. And risky drinking patterns are escalating among women in particular.

More in the Health Gap:
• ‘Everybody was telling me there was nothing wrong’
• Pain bias: The health inequality rarely discussed
• The health risks of maturing early

But the problem isn’t just that women are drinking more. Researchers are finding that women’s bodies are affected differently by alcohol than men’s bodies – for reasons that go beyond mere size.