In a recent study, published in the January edition of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers examined the relationship between alcohol consumption and injury to determine how alcohol increases the risk for injury.

Corresponding author Ted R. Miller, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, and colleagues wanted to know the extent to which serious injury was due to the consumption of alcohol. The researchers examined the proportional decline in injury when alcohol was not a factor.

The researchers began by investigating data about national alcohol consumption and looking at metabolism rates for alcohol in order to establish the number of hours that were spent "alcohol positive" versus "alcohol negative" for heavy drinkers. The results indicated that alcohol use is heavily associated with hospitalized injury. For heavy drinkers, despite an ability to better tolerate alcohol than those who drink moderately, the risk for injury more than tripled when they were drinking.

When heavy drinkers were alcohol-positive, their risk was 4.5 times that when sober. While heavy drinkers can, within limits, tolerate alcohol better, they still significantly raise their risk for injury when drinking. In addition, heavy drinkers are 1.35 times more likely than non-heavy drinkers to experience an injury when sober. This may be due to the effects of a hangover.

The study also found that alcohol raises the risk for near drowning, assault and non-elderly fall. A large number of hospitalizations for injury are associated with alcohol; 36 percent of assaults resulting in hospitalization and 21 percent of injuries are connected with alcohol consumption by the person injured.

Moderate drinkers also have a high risk of injury requiring hospitalization. In fact, their rate is even higher than that of heavy drinkers. This is likely due to moderate drinkers being less accustomed to the effects of alcohol.

This information is helpful in understanding the risks of injury while under the influence of alcohol on beverage bottles. Understanding the significant rates of injury associated with heavy alcohol consumption may help consumers make wise alcohol-related decisions.

Kitty Harris of the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery at Texas Tech, says the study also showed that teens don’t perceive the risks related to binge drinking, which she explains as a drinking episode of five or more alcoholic beverages in a short period of time. Dangers include being involved in a vehicular accident or participating in dangerous behaviors with no memory of them later.

Harris also expressed fears that teens who binge drink or drink at a young age will move toward other drugs or higher alcohol consumption once they enter college. When teens were questioned about their opinions toward binge drinking and risk, nearly 50 percent of teens in the study said they didn’t believe this type of alcohol consumption held “great risk.”

It’s this attitude, says Harris, that’s especially worrisome. Many of the teens in the study believed binge drinking was not a significant event and expressed a desire to experiment with alcohol related to wanting to look popular and be like other teens.

Harris hopes more efforts will encourage teens to consider that binge drinking carries the potential for extremely serious and life-changing consequences, many of which can affect teens well into their adult years.  

The survey, the Nebraska Young Adult Alcohol Opinion Survey, focused on responses from 3,466 Nebraska citizens aged 19 to 25. Results indicate that 87 percent of those participating in the survey had consumed alcohol. Nearly 68 percent of survey respondents had consumed in the month preceding, which equates to 116,000 young adults statewide.

Fred Zwonecheck, administrator at Nebraska Office of Highway Safety, acknowledged that he isn’t surprised by the survey results. In fact, surveys completed over the past several years have shown consistent results. Zwonecheck noted that it is common for alcohol consumption rates to be higher among young adults in upper Midwest states.

The Nebraska Office of Highway Safety partnered with NDHHS and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to conduct the survey, which also found rates of binge drinking to be high.

According to survey results, nearly 65 percent of those participating had consumed alcohol in the past month by binge drinking. This included consuming five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women within just a couple of hours. Even more startling was the fact that 41 percent of binge drinkers guzzled more than double that amount.

The survey also revealed that three in every 10 respondents had driven while under the influence of alcohol in the past year. Of those who reported binge drinking in the preceding month, 20 percent had driven afterward.
 

With such a focus on consumption as the central element of an event, you would easily assume binge drinking to be a problem in the state. A Commercial Appeal report, however, shows that Tennessee actually has the lowest incidence of binge drinking among the 50 states in the Union.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, roughly 20 percent of adults binge drink. This activity is known to include the consumption of four drinks in one sitting for a woman or five for a man.

To determine these binge drinking rates, the CDC relied on self-reported surveys received from 412,000 adults as part of the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, as well as 16,000 high school students who participated in the 2009 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Often identified as the Southern or Appalachian states, including Kentucky and West Virginia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Florida, and all the way to Arkansas and Mississippi, this range of states actually has an overall low rate of binge drinking. Tennessee has the lowest at 6.8 percent. By comparison, the highest is in Wisconsin at 23.9 percent.
 

The Windsor Star recently published a piece that suggests that the use of blanket efforts may not be enough to put a stop to the consumption or prevent alcohol-related injuries. According to study authors, universities need to be able to pinpoint students who are most at risk and perform basic interventions.

Marlon P. Mundt, assistant scientist in the department of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-author for the study, noted that roughly 2.8 million college students in the U.S. drove while under the influence within the last 12 months.

Mundt also highlighted that his study demonstrates that university administrations and student associations should not focus their efforts solely on trying to encourage students to drink less. To achieve success in prevention, the frequency of consumption and an individual’s sensation-seeking disposition have to be considered along with the quantity consumed when assessing the potential for injury.

“There’s a particular subset of students who are very likely to suffer alcohol-related injuries,” Mundt said in the Windsor Star.. “If we’re going to focus efforts on reducing injuries, we have to recognize that this subset of heavy frequent drinkers with a high sensation-seeking disposition is really putting themselves at high risk.”

In the study, Mundt and his colleagues determined that students who compound the risks of frequent drinking with those of heavy drinking are at the highest risk of injury. In fact, the data suggests that 30 to 40 percent of students who are considered frequent, heavy drinkers are getting injured.