Alcohol Harms Women Faster Than Men
A study conducted in Russia has confirmed that the brain-damaging effects of alcohol affect women more quickly than men.
Researchers had a group of alcoholics (78 men and 24 women), between the ages of 18 and 40, as well as 68 alcoholics, complete a series of brain function tests.
They found that female alcoholics did worse on a number of tests of visual working memory, cognitive flexibility, and spatial planning and problem solving compared with males, even though the duration of alcohol use was significantly longer for men (averaging 15 years) than women (averaging 11 years).
Other physiological effects of alcoholism, such as heart and liver damage, are known to affect more quickly in women than in men, an effect known as “telescoping”.
Women experience the alcohol effects faster than men of the same weight because men have more water in their bodies, which better dilutes alcohol’s effects. Women have less of an enzyme that converts alcohol into an inactive substance.
The researchers cautioned that the same negative effects of alcohol are not exempted from alcoholic men.
Source: “Alcohol damages women’s brains faster than men’s” Reuters, 23 April 2007
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