The risk that Alcohol poses to women’s health has set up in the past two decades, when women have started to drinking more frequently and in larger quantities.
Alcohol -related deaths in women More than doubled From 1999 to 2020 and death by hepatitis linked to alcohol, a disease resulting in severe inflammation of the liver, Almost tripled among women over the same period.
A new study, Wednesday published In the medical journal, gastroenterology and clinical hepatology, also indicates a high risk of alcohol -related liver disease Among women. The condition includes various types of liver damage due to excessive alcohol consumption. It covers inflammation at an early stage with serious scars, called cirrhosis, which can cause hepatic insufficiency.
Women are more sensitive than men to alcohol -related liver disease for several reasons. On the one hand, their body tends to have less water weight and a higher percentage of body fat. This combination increases the concentration of alcohol in their blood, which the liver must then treat. Compared to men, women also naturally have lower levels of an enzyme called dehydrogenase alcohol, which helps the body metabolize alcohol. This leads again to higher blood alcohol levels.
These physiological differences, combined with a sharp increase in alcohol consumption and excessive alcohol consumption, have made women particularly vulnerable to alcohol -related diseases.
“Historically, there have been differences in prevalence rates [of alcohol use] Between men and women. And essentially, this gap has now concluded and the ratio between men and the consumption of women is almost 1 to 1, “said Sherry McKee, Yale score director on sexual differences in alcohol consumption disorder.
Changes in women’s lifestyles have created growing opportunities to consume alcohol, said McKee. Young adults today drink less compared to previous generations, but there are now more women in college than men-and college is generally associated with increased consumption of alcohol, she said.
“You associate this with the fact that women delay childbirth, delaying marriage – it just gives more space so that women continue to drink in the post -nuniversary years,” said McKee.
The heavy consumption of alcohol of women is the most frequent in her forties, said Katherine Keyes, professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University. Some researchers attribute the tendency to stress or cultivation of alcohol consumption, but Keyes said that the main reason why women drink more is for fun. She noted that wine and minds are often marketed with women as luxury products or relaxation methods.
Experts have said that more awareness of alcohol consumption health risks could help encourage women to relax.
“This is not the case that each person who drinks strongly will get a liver disease. But we know that a proportion of these people – about 25 to 30%,” said Dr. Jessica Mellinger, principal doctor at Henry Ford Health, a healthy -based health system. The more a person drinks, she added, the more they have the probability of obtaining a liver disease linked to alcohol from any stage.
The study published on Wednesday revealed that big drinkers are developing alcohol -related liver disease at more than double the rate 20 years ago. Researchers suspect that it is because people vulnerable to liver disease – including women and people with obesity or diabetes – drink more compared to past decades.
“The modern American drinker is different from what he did 20 years ago,” said Dr. Brian Lee, the main study of the study and hepatologist at Keck Medicine from the University of South California.
The researchers used data from a national survey led by the government to measure alcohol consumption habits and liver health in the United States, they characterized large drinkers like men who consumed at least 30 grams of alcohol per day – about two standard drinks – and women who consumed at least 20 grams per day.
Among large drinkers, the risk of significant liver damage has more than doubled over a period of 22 years, almost 2% in 1999-2004 to more than 4% in 2013-2020.
The rate of metabolic syndrome – Conditions such as obesity or high blood pressure that increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke – in large drinkers also increased during this period, from 26% to almost 38%. Obesity and type 2 diabetes can cause fat accumulation in the liver, thus increasing the risk of liver disease.
“It could be the situation of a perfect storm. We have an increase in alcohol consumption … in addition to the modification of the prevalence of these others [health] Conditions, ”said Keyes.
Lee said it is important that people are honest with their doctors about their alcohol consumption, so that doctors can decide to detect them for liver disease.
“Your risk of liver disease could be higher than you think,” he said. “The reality is that liver disease is silent, and most people – even with cirrhosis, which is a terminal liver disease – have no symptoms. I always say that it is a blessing and a curse you need very small amounts of healthy liver to feel perfectly well. ”
Keyes said women in particular tend to wait longer to request medical care for excessive alcohol consumption due to social stigma.
“It really has become this hidden epidemic where women wait too long to see someone about a really serious and alcohol-related disease,” she said.
