United States: Alcoholism in women may be linked to hormones because the bottle may be used as a coping mechanism.
Understanding the Impact of Hormones on Behavior
Estrogen, a female sex hormone, encourages binge drinking, according to a recent mouse-based study published in Nature Communications, as reported by HealthDay.
Actually, estrogen makes women “pre-game” or drink as many as five or more beers within the first 30 minutes it is available, research finds.
Most of the previous work in this area, Pleil noted, has offered possible explanations for sex differences in binge drinking, so this study may present the first such explanation.
Pandemic Lockdowns and Women’s Drinking Habits
“Estrogen has such powerful effects on so many behaviors, particularly in females,” Pleil said in a university news release. “So, it makes sense that it would also modulate drinking.”
Data from recent research carried out to compare the alcohol consumption habits of men and women reveal that women have increased their heavy drinking during the pandemic lockdown.
The hormone estrogen increases binge drinking in females by enhancing activity in neurons within the brain’s BNST region. The effect is particularly strong during high-estrogen phases, leading to “front-loading,” or rapid alcohol consumption within the fir https://t.co/5YBorRTO2M
— Gunnar Michel (@bigmic2504) December 31, 2024
In addition, female has a higher rate of alcohol-related hospitalization compared to males.
Brain Mechanisms Behind Binge Drinking
In this experiment, the researcher gave alcohol to lab mice and, at the same time, measured their levels of estrogen.
In particular, the authors used data on female mice and their blood levels of estrogen to establish that when the level is high, the amount of liquid consumed exceeds the levels observed on days with low estrogen.
In addition, this binge drinking was associated with increased activation of a part of the brain referred to as the bed nucleus of the stria terminals, which had been tied to drinking in studies done in the past, investigators pointed out.
Binge alcohol consumption linked to higher estrogen levels. https://t.co/RrgDG3CCuD
— Lara Briden (@LaraBriden) December 30, 2024
“When a female takes her first sip from the bottle containing alcohol, those neurons go crazy,” Pleil said. “And if she’s in a high-estrogen state, they go even crazier.”
That additional stimulation of the neurons makes the mice drink more alcohol, especially within the first half an hour that the bottle is placed within their reach, the study showed.
A Step Toward Understanding Gender Differences
The team also indicated that estrogen directly stimulates these neurons – a discovery that came as shocking because the hormone is generally understood to affect behavior through a mechanism that takes one to a few hours to produce changes in gene expression, at least, was not known to interact with specific neurons.
“We believe this is the first time that anybody has shown that…estrogen made by the ovaries can use such a rapid mechanism to control behavior,” Pleil said.
Researchers intend to investigate whether men’s drinking might be regulated by a similar system.
“All of the infrastructure is there in males, too: the estrogen receptors and the basic circuit organization,” Pleil added.
The only thing that researchers were able to find is that the source of estrogen is different, which they noted down in the background information. Testosterone is converted into the female hormone estrogen in males through a process.
These results also could provide a direction in treating binge drinking by reducing the estrogen concentration in the body or the activity of estrogen on the brain cells, new studies said.
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