More women than previously thought have problems with alcoholism, probably because after the World War II, drinking alcohol became more socially acceptable for women, a study found.

Dr. Richard A. Grucza, of Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, and colleagues analyzed the results of two national surveys on alcohol use: the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES), conducted in 1991 and 1992; and the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), conducted in 2001 and 2002.

The facts are worrying, as white and Hispanic women born in the U.S. after World War II seem to have more problems than previously thought related to alcohol. Also, women with alcohol problems face more severe health-related consequences and possibly more years of life lost than their male counterparts, the study has underlined. The research was published in the May issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Also, a study on rats has found that early alcohol exposure led to a tendency toward heavy drinking, which might be also true in humans. "Early exposure to alcohol may initiate a pattern of heavy drinking and increased vulnerability to relapse," researchers from Duke University Medical Center write in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Though consumed in small amounts, alcohol seems to increase the risk of breast cancer, particularly estrogen-receptor and progesterone-receptor positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women, a large U.S. study revealed last month. A U.S. National Cancer Institute team followed more than 184,000 postmenopausal women for an average of seven years.

The study showed that women who drank one to two drinks a day had a 32 percent increased risk and those who had three or more glasses of alcohol a day had up to a 51 percent increased risk. On the other hand, those having less than one drink a day had a 7 percent increased risk of breast cancer, the team reported.

However, the risk was mostly seen in women whose tumors were positive for both the estrogen and progesterone receptors. About 70 percent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have this kind of tumors. Furthermore, heavy smokers and drinkers are for more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease earlier than people who do not smoke or drink.