The specific dangers of alcohol abuse for women. Alcohol hurts women more.

It's well known that because of a reduced body weight and a reduced volume of water in the body to dilute the concentration of alcohol, women get drunk quicker than men, and are more at risk for the acute effects of binge drinking, including the risk of fatal overdose; but the dangers to women drinkers a not only acute in nature, and alcoholic women are at greater risk for a number of health disorders than are alcoholic men.

Heavy drinking women are more susceptible to developing addictions, and they also seem predisposed to start feeling the negative effects of chronic alcohol abuse faster than men.

A greater percentage of alcoholic women than alcoholic men will develop often fatal cirrhosis of the liver, and women are also more at risk for malnutrition, anemia and high blood pressure, particularly during very heavy drinking. Women alcoholics also suffer more cardiac damage than do men with equivalent drinking histories.

Women alcoholics suffer proportionally more brain damage and memory loss as a result of drinking behaviors as well, and a recent study comparing men and women with similar histories and durations of use saw women exhibit 11% more "brain shrinkage" (a sign of brain cell death) than men.

Heavy drinking greatly increases the gastro intestinal cancer risk in both men and women, but alcoholic women also suffer a hugely elevated risk for breast cancer; and Women who drink heavily are almost 50% more likely to get breast cancer.

The likelihood of developing alcohol related problems increases later in life, and more women develop drinking problems in late adulthood than do men, at a time when they are a greatest risk to suffer the consequences of their dependency.

Alcohol is physically devastating to all, but women are unfairly susceptible to some of its most dangerous effects; and any woman struggling with alcohol use and dependency needs to consider professional treatment help to lessen the risks of a great many serious and possibly fatal disorders.

Our sisters our mothers and our friends need and deserve intervention and treatment, and because each continuing day of abuse increases the risks of so many serious or even lethal disorders, intervention needs to occur as soon as is possible.