I’m not sure if this is the best subreddit for this, but interested to hear other’s thoughts (if you have a better subreddit to suggest, please let me know)
So as we are becoming increasingly aware, a lot of standards for health both physically and mentally are outdated and have many times been disproportionately established by using primarily male subjects.
We all know drinking alcohol isn’t great, and there are many things to say about that, but I just want to discuss this one specific point.
I find it very funny that the generalized standard for safe consumption of alcohol in a week is a maximum of 14 Standard drinks for men, but only 7 standard drinks for women (as I said - there are many points of contention with this issue, so maybe you believe the ideal for everyone is zero drinks, maybe you think three, that’s not the point here.)
It seems so generalized that a woman would be considered as being doubly affected by the negative effects of alcohol versus a man, and I’m so curious about how this was established.
Even just considering vitamins and supplements - women are usually fractionally different in the DV they require versus men - so how could the effects of alcohol be so drastically different?
Interested to hear any thoughts/comments on this!
EDIT: when I said DV, I made a mistake, I was actually referring to upper daily limit, not the suggested amount to consume per day. So I was meaning what can be safely metabolized by women and men isn’t much different when it comes to vitamins/minerals, so I was surprised it’s so different for alcohol.
Men metabolize alcohol approximately 30% more efficiently than women I believe, which is what accounts for most of the difference. Also men on average are larger so that accounts for some difference as well
The potential for acute and chronic health impacts from alcohol consumption is really high; supplement & vitamin recommendations are generally about minimums for good health, not maximums to prevent harm.
The average man they base this on is much bigger and heavier than the average woman, and women carry higher body fat, which impacts on alcohol metabolism.
That said, in Australia they now recommend 10 or less per week, and no more than 4 in one day, for healthy adults regardless of gender.
Far from expert but I assume that is mostly based on body mass. Although I thought I remember reading a paper about women handling negative effects of alcohol better. Maybe that was just related to resistance training.
time.com
The latest study, published Wednesday in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, finds that drinking lightly four or more times per week may raise the risk of early death, even though that amount of drinking is consistent with federal guidelines.Oct 4, 2018
We are still not that advanced when it comes to nutrition. We know even less when it come to the use of alcohol.
The latest study, published Wednesday in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, finds that drinking lightly four or more times per week may raise the risk of early death, even though that amount of drinking is consistent with federal guidelines.Oct 4, 2018