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The Association between Moderate Alcoholic Beverage Consumption and Serum Estradiol and Testosterone Levels in Normal Postmenopausal Women: Relationship to the Literature
Author(s) -
Gavaler Judith S.,
Thiel David H.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1992.tb00642.x
Subject(s) - alcohol , endocrinology , medicine , testosterone (patch) , methyltestosterone , estrogen , morning , postmenopausal women , estrone , physiology , chemistry , biochemistry
The major source of endogenous estrogens in postmenopausal women is the aromatization of androgens to estrogens; because alcohol is known to increase aromatization, the relationship between moderate alcoholic beverage consumption and serum estradiol levels was evaluated in 128 normal postmenopausal women. Alcohol intake was based on a composite of self‐report and food record information. Among the 78.8% of women reporting alcohol use, weekly intake was 4.8 ± 0.6 drinks. Among abstainers, estradiol levels were 100.8 ± 12.1 pmol/liter, significantly lower than in alcohol users, 162.6 ± 11.9 pmol/liter. Significant bivariate correlations were found between the logarithm of estradiol and total weekly drinks. In multiple linear regression analyses inclusion of alcohol as a variable increased the amount of explained variation in estradiol. Similar findings were demonstrable when the crude estimator of aromatization, the estradiol:testosterone ratio logarithm was the dependent variable. Together, these findings suggest that moderate alcohol use is an important factor for postmenopausal estrogen status and may offer a partial explanation for the reported protective effect of moderate alcohol consumption with respect to postmenopausal cardiovascular disease risk.