Bottle-hardened female drinkers can usually drink their male boon-companions well under the table. But they get drunk all the faster once they start on the wine or the whisky. An American study tried to find out why.

It is known that women generally have a lower blood pressure than men after a round or two, regardless of relative body mass. But what the researchers really want to know is: why that difference should disappear upon intravenous administration of alcohol.

Seeking an explanation for this phenomenon, Charles Lieber and his team from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New-York, examined the activity of three enzymes known to be active in the stomach in the metabolism of alcohol. Lieber discovered that a particular enzyme - going by the name of chi-alcohol dehydrogenase (chi-ADH) - metabolizes alcohol twice as fast in men as it does in women.

Volunteers drank solutions with 10% and 40% alcohol, corresponding with the percentage of alcohol in wine and whisky. The chi-ADH activity sky-rocketed in men, but not the women. However, little if any activity of that enzyme was noted in guinea pigs, male nor female, who drank a 5% alcohol solution (which is usually the case with beer).

This research suggests that women who drink beer can drink pint for pint with men. However, other studies appear to suggest that alcohol wreaks more havoc in other organs. This all the more so in women than in men.

Lieber recommends providing different-size glasses for men and women. After all, lower body mass and higher subcutaneous fat deposits make women more sensitive to alcohol.

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