Alcohol and estrogen levels in postmenopausal women: the spectrum of effect

Compared with alcohol-abstaining normal postmenopausal women, estradiol levels are known to be statistically increased in normal postmenopausal women who consume alcoholic beverages moderately, and to be even further increased in alcoholic postmenopausal women with cirrhosis. This study was undertaken to evaluate whether or not there is a spectrum of changes in levels of sex steroids and pituitary hormones associated with alcohol abstinence, alcohol use, and alcohol-induced cirrhosis in the absence of current alcohol abuse. For levels of estradiol and testosterone, as well as for the estradiol to testosterone ratio, all three groups differed significantly from each other; for the pituitary hormones, levels in the abstainers and alcohol users were similar and statistically different from levels in the alcoholic cirrhotic women. Compared with the alcohol-abstaining women, the relationships of age and estradiol with levels of the other hormones were disturbed for 4 of 11 correlations examined among the alcohol users, and for 9 of 11 correlations evaluated among the alcoholic cirrhotic women. These findings suggest that not only are hormonal relationships markedly disrupted among alcoholic cirrhotics, but also that alcoholic beverage consumption in the range of 0.1-28 total weekly drinks results in detectable perturbations of the normal hormonal relationships expected in postmenopausal women.