Sex Hormones Make Women More Likely To Be Addicted To Alcohol, Study Shows

The pattern of alcohol use between men and women is strikingly different and they undergo different consequences of overdrinking. While women drink less alcohol than men, they are more likely to experience illness and bodily harm related to alcohol.

Researchers have found that fluctuating estrogen is the key mechanism that determines this imbalance between the two genders.

In the new study, the researchers report that the sex hormone estrogen can make alcohol consumption more rewarding to female mice over male ones. Meanwhile, a lower number of estrogen receptors in the brain can lessen the excessive drinking behavior in female mice, not male mice.

The study builds on a growing body of research that suggests hormonal differences may be the answer to why problematic drinking in women can develop into severe drinking. Amy Lasek, the study’s co-author and psychiatrist at the University of Illinois, said:

“Women more rapidly transition from problematic alcohol drinking to having an alcohol use disorder and to suffer from the negative health effects of alcohol, such as increased cancer risk, liver damage, heart disease, and brain damage.”

She added that if women drink more alcohol during periods with higher estrogen levels, they can suffer from health risks caused by alcohol drinking as well as increase the probability of developing severe alcohol drinking problems.

Though the researchers conducted this study on mice, the findings may pave the way for treating alcohol use disorder for humans based on their sexes.

Reward and reinforcement

Estrogen has a considerable impact on the dopamine system and raises the females’ vulnerability to develop addictions like alcohol. Commonly known as the “feel-good neurotransmitter,” dopamine carries information from one brain cell to another and helps regulate mood, reward, and motivation.

This sex hormone impacts drinking and the dopamine system in two ways: it can make neurons sensitive to alcohol, causing higher dopamine release. Also, high levels of estrogen are associated with elevated alcohol consumption and excessive drinking.

As of now, researchers haven’t found which estrogen receptors are the key in this process. To find the answer, the research team examined female and male mice and activated estrogen receptors in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the mice, which is involved in drug reinforcement and reward. Then, the researchers tracked the influence of the activation on alcohol’s impact on the brain.

It turns out that when the estrogen receptor ERα is activated, neurons fire more frequently than usual in response to alcohol. More neuron firing increases the release of dopamine, meaning the subject could feel more reward when drinking. Therefore, alcohol abuse may happen more when the levels of estrogen increase.

Then, the researchers decreased the number of estrogen receptors in both female and male mice’s VTA to see how their behavior with drinking. As a result, this reduced excessive drinking behavior in female mice but male mice didn’t express any changes.

All in all, the study suggests that the estrogen receptors ERα in the VTA can boost binge excessive drinking in female mice. Meanwhile, male mice have estrogen receptors in the VTA too but don’t seem to be affected. It’s unclear why there’s this difference, but according to Lasek, it’s possible that female mice’s estrogen receptors are more sensitive to activation when levels of estrogen change.

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