New research findings from RIA indicate that when women drink, they typically end up with the same estimated blood alcohol concentration as men. The findings were recently published by RIA senior research scientists James L. York, Ph.D., a pharmacologist, and John W. Welte, Ph.D., a psychologist. Their studies confirmed that women consume fewer drinks per drinking occasion. However, when the researchers adjusted for the different body compositions of men and women, they found that women are likely to achieve blood alcohol concentrations that are similar to men's, even though they consume fewer drinks. The reason for this is that the average American woman, who weighs about 135 pounds, has about 25 percent less body water than the average American man, who weighs about 170 pounds.
Body water includes blood and other body fluids.
With less body water to dissolve alcohol, the same dose of alcohol is more concentrated in the average woman than it is in the average man. Clinical sample Dr. York interviewed 273 alcoholics and 133 moderate drinkers about their drinking practices, including how often they drank and how much alcohol they typically consumed. Highlights of his findings are given in Table 1. Male moderate drinkers reported that they usually drank on approximately six days per month, while female moderate drinkers reported that they drank four to five times a month. On days when they drank, the men averaged 3.8 drinks and the women averaged 2.4 drinks.