Bottle of the sexes

by Dr Thomas Stuttaford ~ Times Newspapers Ltd ~ July 21, 2005
Alcohol often discriminates against women

JULY is the month for summer parties. Celebrating the start of summer on May 1 by listening to choristers welcoming the dawn from the top of Magdalen College in Oxford sounds romantic, but it seems to be almost invariably wet. And even June can't be relied upon. But there is a reasonable chance that the weather in July will be balmy, women will be able to wear their flimsy dresses and the Pimm's or champagne will taste better for being appropriate.

Pimm's and champagne lose their edge if diluted by the rain that drips off trees sheltering the revellers - they taste quite different when drunk on a sunlit lawn by the side of water.Most women have no problem about drinking champagne, wine or Pimm's but, surprisingly, they drink only 11 per cent of the beer brewed in the UK. Every effort is made to make beer female-friendly while not affecting its macho male image. Women can now buy alcohol-free beer, a drink that has improved in flavour enormously over the past 20 years. However, it accounts for only 1 per cent of beer sales in the UK, and is drunk so rarely by the under-25s that they don't even figure in the statistics.

In an effort to woo women, smaller beer glasses (a third of a pint, rather than a half) with stems, and 2 per cent beer (about half the usual strength) have been introduced. In the US, so-called "light" beers (the term refers to the number of calories, not the amount of alcohol) are popular with women and account for 27 per cent of the market, but these beers have made little impact in the UK or the rest of Europe.

There are few parties that are not improved if both men and women are present. Most people also probably enjoy the occasion more if the women, as well as the men, are drinking. Even so, there is unfortunately some rather depressing news for women to ponder as they knock back the Pimm's or champagne on an Oxford lawn or in the Chelsea Physic Garden. Moderate alcohol consumption hasn't the same protective effect on their cognitive facilities (medical jargon for intellect) in middle age as it has for men.

Women may already know that, while they are in their reproductive years, their livers, hormones and enzyme systems are not as well designed for metabolising alcohol as men's. Women become drunk more quickly and sober up more slowly. Women should also know that the early stages of serious liver damage are less easily reversed by abstinence.

The latest finding on women and alcohol comes from the British 1946 Birth Cohort Study, which analysed alcohol consumption and its effect on changes in cognitive function. Although its findings cause some potential concern, they are not of the magnitude to spoil a party.

The study surveyed 903 men and 860 women born in 1946. The researchers tested memory, speed of thought and concentration. Allowance was made for educational background, occupation, social class and general intellectual ability. Those men who drank in moderation suffered a slower decline in memory between the ages of 43 and 53 than did their teetotal contemporaries. These effects were apparent regardless of health status and of whether they smoked, underexercised, were overweight, had heart disease or were depressed.

However, there was what the researchers, perhaps euphemistically, described as "a negative association between alcohol and psychomotor function in women" and they added that this was "a potential cause for concern". In lay language, this means that those women who were moderate, regular drinkers tended to be less intellectually bright in middle age than their similarly matched non-drinking female contemporaries. (Drinking in moderation is usually defined in women as up to three small drinks a day, and in men, up to four - this is not the same as the modern "unit".)

There was fractionally better news from a US study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. This showed that in older age groups (65 to 80), a woman's mental state was better if she regularly drank one drink a day than if she was teetotal.

Another recent survey, published in Neuroepidemiology, has confirmed the advantages that moderate, but not heavy, drinking confers on the intellect of men in older age groups. It has made one new finding: the advantage conferred by a moderate alcohol intake on the intellect of those in older age groups is likely to be proportional to the drinker's educational background - the better the education, the more likely it is that a modest drink or two will keep the intellect sharp. The authors suggest that this may well be related to differences in the pattern of drinking, as these vary with education.