WASHINGTON — Men still drink more alcohol than women, but a new study shows the gap isn’t as wide as it used to be.
In the study released Monday, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) found that the percentage of women who drank alcohol in the previous 30 days increased from 45 percent to 48 percent. The percentage of men who drank decreased slightly — from 57 percent to 56 percent.
Over that time, the average number of drinking days increased for women during the month of study: 7.3 days, up from 6.8. Men drank fewer days than usual — 9.5, down slightly from 9.9.
Binge drinking by 18- to 25-year-olds in college did not change during the decade under study.
But among 18- to 25-year-olds not in college, there was a significant increase in binge drinking among women and a significant decrease among men, effectively narrowing the gender gap in binge drinking in this age group.
“This study confirms what other recent reports have suggested about changing patterns of alcohol use by men and women in the U.S.,” NIAAA Director George F. Koob said in the study.
Koob adds that the evidence of increasing alcohol use by women is particularly concerning, given that they are at greater risk than men of a variety of alcohol-related health effects — including liver inflammation, cardiovascular disease, neurotoxicity and cancer.
Gabrielle Glaser, author of “Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink and How They Can Regain Control,” says women develop drinking habits in college, where they attend male-dominated campus parties in which alcohol is involved.
“Women go along with these acts and they develop drinking habits that they carry with them to their 20s, 30s and 40s,” Glaser tells WTOP.
She says women have more body fat than men, so they retain more alcohol and have fewer enzymes to help process it.
“Women physically cannot keep up with men, even if they are the same weight,” Glaser says. “They physically are going to have more toxic reactions to alcohol sooner than a man ever will.”
Aaron White, who led the study, said there’s also a prevalence in young men and women who drank alcohol and smoked marijuana at the same time during the study. Males 18 to 25 did so 19 percent of the time, up from 15 percent. Women the same age did so 10 percent of the time.
A report of the study is online in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.”
