Women compared with men, experience significantly short intervals between the first use of alcohol, and the onset of significant alcohol-related problems. Women on average, experience problems within five to seven years of use, whereas men usually experience alcohol-related problems after ten to twelve years of heavy use. This accelerated course is known as “telescoping.” Health consequences of excessive drinking include: increased risk of cancers, liver damage, and heart disease, to name a few. PREVENTION: Catherine Paradis, senior researcher, and policy analysist, at CCSA and Co-Chair of Canada’s Low Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines, recommends that using safe amounts of alcohol, can assist in avoiding health related risks as well as hi-risk activities, such as driving while over the limit, taking over-the-counter and prescription medications that interact with alcohol, or drinking and participating in activities which require skill, coordination, and alertness. However, this is keeping in mind that there is no safe amount for women with a history of breast cancer.

Women are more vulnerable to alcohols adverse consequences and alcohol has a profound impact on women’s health compared to men. Although, alcohol’s link to breast cancer is the most well known and documented in the research literature, the consequences to our overall health, including heart and liver disease is extremely high for women, of every age, who have three or more drinks per week. Women’s bodies contain proportionately less water and more fat than a man’s. Water dilutes alcohol and fat retains it, so organs are exposed to higher concentrations of alcohol for longer periods of time. At any given dose, our blood alcohol levels will be higher than a man’s, even taking into account differences in body weight. As a result one drink for a woman is roughly equivalent to two drinks for a man. As women age their bodies contain even less water and more fat, so blood alcohol levels rise even faster. Also, women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men. This difference is due to variations in the amount of the enzyme responsible for metabolizing alcohol. Women have less of this enzyme in their stomach, small intestine and liver. As 30% of alcohol goes through the stomach directly into the blood stream this means that the alcohol goes through the bloodstream to all cells of the body less diluted and in higher concentrations.

DID YOU KNOW: The National Advisory Group has published new guidelines on the number of drinks consumed each week, and the increased risk of alcohol related health issues. The International Agency for Research for decades have classified Alcohol as a #1 preventable Carcinogenic to humans, behind Tobacco and Asbestos– especially for women! Alcohol use in Canada causes nearly $7,000 cases of cancer deaths each year in Canada. The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), who advises the Canadian government on alcohol consumption, has drastically reduced what is considered low-risk drinking. Previous guidelines indicated 10 drinks a week for women and 15 for men. The new proposed guidelines now indicate that more than 6 drinks per week leads to increased risk of a host of health issues. The new proposed guidelines suggest that the health risks become “increasingly high” when someone has six or more drinks per week.