17 - Female Beer Drinking and the Morning After

Abstract

The goal of this chapter is to review the drinking patterns and hangover effects of beer consumption in women. We first provide an overview of alcohol consumption and the experience of the alcohol hangover. Alcohol is a widely consumed drug. Beer is consumed by both men and women although women typically consume less than men. In North America, per capita consumption of beer has been stable over the past 20 years; total amount of pure alcohol consumed in beer is approximately 4–4.5 l/year. Given that beer contains ∼5% alcohol by volume (∼17 ml alcohol per 341 ml bottle), this represents the annual consumption of a large quantity of beer. Factors contributing to consumption including consumption rates, locations and social influences are reviewed, as there are some limitations of the methods used to collect these data. There are some differences in alcohol pharmacokinetics between women and men, however when these are controlled, sex does not appear to differentially affect the intoxication or hangover experience. Consumption of alcohol is often associated with negative delayed effects sometimes experienced as hangover symptoms. These delayed or hangover effects are difficult to standardize and have not been widely studied. Although there is little published work on the experience of hangover in women, the few reports that are available indicate that hangover effects on performance do not appear to differ between women and men. Furthermore, there are very few studies on the hangover effects of beer consumption in women. This chapter concludes with a summary of the known effects of beer hangover on physical and psychomotor performance in women, as well as general recommendations for future work.