NBC News
The risk that alcohol means for women’s health has increased in the last two decades, since this group drinks more and more frequently and in greater quantities.
Alcohol -related deaths among women doubled between 1999 and 2020. And alcohol -related hepatitis deaths, a disease that causes a serious inflammation of the liver, almost tripled among women during the same period.
A new study published Wednesday in the Clinical Medical Journal Gastroenterology and Hepatology also warned of the high risk of alcohol liver disease among women.
This condition covers several types of liver damage due to its excessive consumption: from early stage inflammation to severe healing, known as cirrhosis, which can cause liver failure.
Women are more susceptible than men to alcohol -related liver diseases for several reasons. On the one hand, their bodies tend to have less weight in water and a higher percentage of body fat. This combination increases the concentration of alcohol in the blood, which the liver has to process.
Compared to men, women also have lower levels of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase, which helps the body metabolize alcohol, which leads to higher concentrations of blood alcohol.
These physiological differences, combined with the drastic increase in alcohol consumption and excessive consumption, have made women especially vulnerable to diseases related to this substance.
“Historically, there have been differences in prevalence rates (alcohol consumption) between men and women. And, in essence, that gap has closed and the proportion between the consumption of alcohol of men and women is almost 1 to 1,” said Sherry McKee, director of the Yale Score Program on gender differences in consumption disorder.
Changes in women’s lifestyle have created more and more opportunities to consume alcohol, McKee said. Young adults today drink less compared to previous generations, but now there are more women than men in the university, and the university is generally associated with greater alcohol consumption, he said.
“If we add to that the fact that women are delaying motherhood and marriage, this gives them more room to continue drinking after university,” McKee explained.
Excessive alcohol consumption among women is more common in adulthood, said Katherine Keyes, Epidemiology professor at the Mailman Public Health School at Columbia University.
Some researchers attribute this tendency to stress or the culture of drinking in the office, but Keyes said that the main reason why women drink more is for fun. He pointed out that wine and liquors are often marketed between them as luxury items or relaxation methods.
Experts indicated that greater awareness about the health risks of alcohol consumption could help encourage women to reduce their intake.
“It is not true that all people who drink in excess will develop a liver disease. But we do know that a part of them, between 25 and 30 %, will do it,” said Dr. Jessica Mellinger, of Henry Ford Health, a Michigan -based health system. The more a person drinks, he added, the greater the probability of developing a liver disease related to alcohol in any phase.
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The study published on Wednesday revealed that those who drink large amounts of alcohol are developing liver diseases at a more than double pace than 20 years ago. Diveros researchers suspect that this is because people vulnerable to liver diseases, including women and people with obesity or diabetes, drink more than in past decades.
“The modern American drinker is different from the 20 years ago,” said Dr. Brian Lee, lead author of the Studio and Keck Medicine hepatologist at the University of Southern California.
The researchers used data from a national survey led by the Government to measure habits of alcohol consumption and liver health in the United States. They characterized those who drink large amounts of alcohol as men who consumed at least 30 grams of alcohol a day – only two standard drinks – and women who consumed at least 20 grams daily.
Among those who drink large amounts, the risk of important liver damage duplicated in a period of 22 years, from almost 2% in 1999-2004 to more than 4% in 2013-20.
The rate of metabolic syndrome – affections such as obesity or arterial hypertension that increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and strokes – among inveterate drinkers also increased during that time, from 26% to almost 38%. Both obesity and type 2 diabetes can cause the accumulation of fat in the liver, which raises the risk of liver disease.
“It could be a perfect storm situation. We have an increase in alcohol consumption, along with a change in the prevalence of these other (health) conditions,” Keyes said.
Lee pointed out that it is important that people are sincere with their doctors about their alcohol consumption, so that they can decide whether to submit them to liver disease detection tests.
“The risk of liver disease may be greater than you think,” he added. “The reality is that liver diseases are silent and most people, even those with cirrhosis, which is a hepatic disease in the terminal phase, do not present any symptoms. I always say that it is a blessing and a curse that is needed very little healthy liver to feel perfectly well.”
Keyes said women, in particular, tend to wait longer to seek medical attention due to excessive alcohol consumption due to social stigma.
“It is becoming a silent epidemic in which women wait too long to consult someone about a really serious alcohol condition,” he explained.
