Why alcohol is so damaging for women

Young women who drink heavily, week after week, are jeopardising not only their physical health but also their mental abilities and their long-term chances of having a child.

Virtually every organ in the body is affected by prolonged absorption of alcohol which passes quickly into the bloodstream before entering the liver.

There are at least 60 different diseases linked to heavy drinking, but women show far greater sensitivity to the effects of ethanol than men. Computerised tomography (CT) scans have shown that in women there is more widespread shrinkage of brain tissue and greater enlargement of the normal spaces within the brain, even when they have been drinking heavily for a shorter period. The speed of mental reactions, complex reasoning and a sense of physical space all deteriorate more rapidly in women drinkers.

The brain damage that accompanies heavy drinking isn't only the result of how the alcohol affects the nerve tissue. It's also seen in liver disease, hormonal changes and head injuries that come from falls.

All alcohol passes into the liver and, when there is an excessive amount, the liver becomes very fatty. Drinking more than six units a day raises the blood pressure but it can lead insidiously to cirrhosis. The first signs of this - vomiting, jaundice and a swollen abdomen - often don't appear until a late stage of the disease, but liver cirrhosis is now the third largest cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

Fertility is also affected by regular bouts of intoxication as the ovaries are particularly sensitive to drunkenness.

There is also a much higher chance of a woman having casual, unprotected sex which raises her chances of catching a sexually transmitted disease such as chlamydia, which, in turn, may damage her Fallopian tubes.

The human cost of drinking is enormous. Marriages where one partner drinks more than 21 units a week are twice as likely to end in divorce, children of problem drinkers develop a higher rate of psychiatric disorders, and domestic violence becomes commonplace. Controversy still ranges about what constitutes a safe level of drinking.

It is a daily habit for many, a key ingredient to a social life but what is becoming clear is that some people have a much stronger propensity for the habit to become a reliance, possibly because of a genetic susceptibility.

The grim truth is that most of those who need help won't get it until they are chronically dependent on drink, and their bodies have been wrecked.

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