KnowHOW team explains: While conventional wisdom blames it on women’s smaller physique compared to that of men, recent studies suggest it has more to do with body composition. Because women’s bodies have a higher ratio of fat to water, they reach a higher blood alcohol concentration after a single drink than men, even when matched for weight and size.

Enzymes also play a key role. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1990 found that in women levels of gastric alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), a compound that breaks down alcohol, are on average nearly half of what they are in men. It also found that the amount of alcohol metabolised after its first passage through a woman’s liver and stomach is 23 per cent of what it is in men. In short, women metabolise alcohol differently from men. Another study in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research found that the ADH is less active in women, making them more susceptible to the effects of wine and hard liquor but not beer.

Both the findings explain why women have higher rates of alcohol-related diseases such as cirrhosis when they drink the same amount of alcohol as men. However, there is a silver lining: women who indulge in a drink or two a day have lower rates of heart attacks than those who avoid alcohol.

The question was sent by Rina Ghosh from Siliguri