No laughing matter

FOR many Irish women, excessive drinking is the norm.

It’s not just the hangover the follow morning that should concern them — it’s the long-term health implications, affecting fertility and increasing susceptibility to diseases such as cancer.

The Department of Health recommends that women consume less than 14 units of alcohol per week, with alcohol-free days. An alcohol binge is six or more units in one session. A unit of alcohol is defined as 10mls of pure ethanol.

If you’re drinking a medium-sized glass of red wine (150mls), that’s 13% alcohol by volume. This will contain 19.5mls of pure alcohol. Each glass will have roughly two units.

If you’re a beer or stout drinker, the most commonly consumed varieties are 4.3% alcohol by volume, meaning that each pint contains 2.4 units. A pub measure of spirits is 1.5 units, whereas a standard bottle of alcopops is 1.8 units.

Once you know the number of units in these different beverages, it should be easy to calculate your typical weekly intake.

If you’re shocked by the final number, you’re probably not alone. One of the biggest factors contributing to over-consumption of alcohol in Ireland is people’s ignorance of how much they’re drinking.

The other major factor predisposing Irish women to over-consumption of alcohol is a misconception that it’s a harmless bit of craic, and that they can drink pint for pint (or shot for shot) with the boys.

This isn’t true. Not only are women generally smaller than men, they also have less lean tissue mass through which to distribute their alcohol. Women’s smaller livers are less well able to cope with high intakes of alcohol, especially if it’s taken in a binge.

A 2008 HSE report outlines the multiple, adverse effects that alcohol can have on the human body, emphasising that women manifest the health-damaging effects of alcohol at much lower intake levels than men.

For example, women whose typical consumption averages out at one to two pints of beer per day, equivalent to a quarter to a half bottle of wine, are two to four times more likely to get mouth, throat or oesophageal cancer than nonconsumers.

Aside from predictable increases in their risk of liver cirrhosis and liver cancer, the risk of breast cancer in these women increases by 40%, while their risk of high blood pressure and its associated disorders is doubled. And the damage doesn’t end there, because, in addition to alcohol’s adverse effects on fertility, there’s now strong evidence that even low intakes during pregnancy greatly increase the risk of disrupted foetal growth, low birth weight, prematurity and miscarriage.

The worrying thing is that the intakes described above aren’t uncommon in Ireland.

So where does that leave us? Well, while alcohol’s an enjoyable part of our culture, it’s good to know the potential downside.

And if that means pausing to ask ‘have I had enough?’, before pouring that next glass of sauvignon blanc or shiraz, perhaps that’s not such a terrible thing.