·         Estrogen; Postmenopausal Women; Moderate Alcoholic Beverage Consumption

Abstract:

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.

Of interest would be the effects upon men of alcohol consumption and testosterone, since for men there is also a cardio-protective effect--jk.