Alcohol is a small water- soluble molecule. It distributes rapidly into all body water so that its concentrations in blood approximates that in other tissues.
Since women have lower body water compared to men, for the same dose of alcohol their blood alcohol concentrations will be higher than in men. In addition, women metabolize alcohol slowly than men (apparently, they have fewer alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes); women therefore experience severe and prolonged effects on alcohol intoxication.
Women also have lower levels of these metabolizing enzymes in the stomach ordinarily responsible for breaking down alcohol before absorption (first pass effect). As a . . .
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