P450? That's all you can come up with?

In my opinion, one of the better answers to this question is found in one of the (many) alcohol receptors in the brain, the GABA(A) receptor. This receptor is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter receptor of the central nervous system, and serves to dampen overall neurotransmission.

Progesterone signaling (and other metabolites, like pregnanolone and allopregnanolone) change the the subunit composition of this receptor and thus, its sensitivity to alcohol, over the course of the female menstrual cycle.

It's all in the brain, baby.

Some references: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17290…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11744…

Hi Science. I think you got the estrogen/progesterone phases reversed.

It's official, I will start making these observations now and report back to you in several months in order to have a statistically viable sample number. Cheers!

@biogirl. Excellent! I was going to talk about the GABA receptor work, but ran out of space. Perhaps a slog post sometime soon.

Do similar things occur in men's bodies? I swear there are times like the writer's when I can down 3 martinis with little effect, then others when a weak gin&tonic bowls me over.
Great column, as always!

@ science. also, the drinking thing throws off your basal body temperature so unless you are pretty familiar with your cycle, the drinking would make it harder to tell where you are in the cycle. the more you drink, the higher your basal body temperature is.

I am so pleased that Science answered this! We've worked out a plan to keep track of my alcohol consumption, ability to do things, and approximate hormone levels and will definitely let you know how it goes.