Monday, November 12, 2007

One drink a day for women and two for men

I keep seeing that people limit their drinking to one drink a day for women and two for men.

What I really want to know is whether this gender difference is due to the difference in average body mass between the genders, or some other factor.

I'm 5'7" and 150 lbs. It certainly wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a man to be exactly the same size. So would a 5'7" 150 lbs. man be able to safely drink twice as much as I can safely drink? Or is his limit slightly less because he's a bit smaller than the average man? And does that mean my limit is more because I'm somewhat bigger than the average woman?

Or are there some kind of metabolic differences between the sexes independent of body size?

We could really use this information, and people who are far bigger or smaller than average could probably use it even more.

1 comment:

laura k said...

"Or are there some kind of metabolic differences between the sexes independent of body size?"

I think that's the implication, although it is not explained well.