Why Men Drink More than Women
06 Jan, 2014 | Labroots
Most people are already aware that men drink more than women. The results of a new study indicate that differences in the way men and women respond to stress may be the reason for the discrepancy. The findings were published in Science News and a number of other science articles after the original report in the December 11 issue of Addiction.
Researchers studied men and women in a situation where they were allowed to drink beer or wine at their leisure. At the time, half of the number of men and women were asked to perform a stressful task where they were to cross out the letter “e” in a series of texts that had increasingly complex rules and required them to use a lot of self-control. The other half of men and women were given the simpler task of crossing out any instances of “e” that occurred in the texts. The findings were that men drank four times the amount of alcohol that women drank after performing the more stressful task. Even more telling, the women who participated in the stressful task drank even less than those women who performed the easy task.
Scientists believe that blood glucose provides the energy necessary to maintain self-control while under stress. However, once the glucose levels in the men who were stressed-out had been depleted, they were no longer able to maintain control, leading to an increase in alcohol consumption. Women are naturally less tempted by alcohol, so that they have a natural drinking deterrent. An interesting note is that those male volunteers who kept track of the number of drinks they had cut their consumption by more than half.RECENT POSTS
Tips for Successful Social Campaigns with Labroots
05 Apr, 2024
Labroots 2023 In Review
11 Jan, 2024
Labroots: 2022 In Review
21 Dec, 2022
Tips for Successful Social Campaigns with Labroots
28 Jan, 2022
2021 in Review
12 Jan, 2022