Binge drinking associated with higher chances of developing this disease

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIH), bring drinking is defined as consuming more than 5 or 4 drinks in a two-hour period that raises blood alcohol levels to over 0.08%.

But if this sounds like your average Friday night, listen up. A new study, conducted by researchers at the University of Texas and published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, shows that moderate drinkers who participate in binge drinking are more likely to develop drinking problems than drinkers who consume the same amount of alcohol without biting it.

Photo by Stanislav Ivanitskiy via Unsplash

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The researchers analyzed a national sample of US adults and found that moderate drinkers who participated in binge drinking were five times more likely to have multiple drinking problems over a decade. The data was collected through surveys of over a thousand people aged 30+ and collected on two separate occasions, with a 9-year gap between them.

The researchers were surprised to find that most cases of binge drinking occurred in people who were average or moderate drinkers, thus escaping public health scrutiny.

“A person whose total consumption on Saturday night is seven drinks presents a greater risk profile than someone whose total consumption is one daily drink at dinner, even though their average drinking level is the same,” explained Dr. Charles Holahan, lead author of Learning.

The study highlights the problem of binge drinking and shows that the number of drinks consumed in a week overall is not as powerful as the manner in which the drink is consumed. Many people may think that because they consume less than a certain amount of beverages per week, they are safe from the ill effects of alcohol without considering how they consume it.

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NIH statistics show that while teens and young adults are reducing their binge drinking, older adults and women are increasing. Ten percent of adults over 65 have reported binge drinking in the past month. The situation is more worrying for women, with one in four binge drinking in the past month, leading to an average of three binge eating sessions per month.