The rate of binge drinking among college students is dropping, according to a study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Binge drinking among college students increased from 37 percent to 45 percent between 1999 and 2005, but declined to 37 percent by 2014, the study found. Among young adults not enrolled in college, rates of binge drinking rose from 36 percent in 1999 to 40 percent in 2014, HealthDay reports. The findings are published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. “A number of factors may have contributed to the recent reduction in binge drinking and its related problems among college students,” lead researcher Ralph Hingson said in a news release. He noted an increased emphasis by college administrators on adopting interventions aimed at reducing problem drinking may have played a role.

The rate of binge drinking among U.S. teens and young adults has declined over the past six years, according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Among teens and young adults ages 12 to 20, 14 percent report having engaged in binge drinking in the past month. The findings are based on an annual survey of 67,500 people, HealthDay reports. The states with the highest levels of underage binge drinking – 21 percent — were North Dakota, New Hampshire and Vermont. States with the lowest levels were North Carolina (11.6 percent), Tennessee (11.45 percent) and Utah (10.9 percent).

Nearly 32 million adults in the United States (13 percent of the U.S. population aged 18 and older) consumed more than twice the number of drinks considered binge drinking on at least one occasion, according to a 2013 survey that asked about past-year drinking. This higher level of drinking is associated with increased health and safety risks. A report of the findings is online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study was conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Binge drinking, defined as having four or more drinks on an occasion for women, or five or more drinks on an occasion for men, can produce blood alcohol levels greater than 0.08 percent, which is the legal limit for driving in the United States. Reaching this level is well known to increase the risk of harms to...

Parties, alcohol, and freedom have long gone hand in hand with college - for as long as teenagers have been leaving mom and dad to begin their educations. It isn't any wonder that college students make up one of the highest ranking demographic groups for alcohol abuse. Estimates reflect that just over 60 percent of college students have used alcohol in the last 30 days, and that as many as two-thirds of those students have taken part in binge drinking in the same period. That is a change from college students' drinking habits from the past. While the use of alcohol has remained constant for the last few decades, instances of binge drinking have increased dramatically over that time frame, and that can carry some serious risks, reports NJ alcohol rehab center Summit Behavioral Health. Binge drinking is defined as imbibing 5 or more consecutive drinks for men, and 4 or...

Based on the findings of research featured in a special issue of the respected journal Addiction released January 10, 2017, experts in public health research, policy, and community mobilization are calling for greater restrictions on youth exposure to alcohol marketing similar to the “legally binding global health treaties and non-binding codes [that] have been developed to restrict the marketing of tobacco, breast milk substitutes and unhealthy foods, based on evidence of a public health crisis.” The issue features an analysis and first-ever review of a dozen research papers by an impressive roster of global public health experts. The key findings in the research and review include: There’s strong evidence that exposure to alcohol marketing leads to early drinking by youth. The more alcohol marketing messages that young people see – including those in social media - the more likely that they will begin drinking and will drink hazardously through binge drinking.The...

America has a alcohol problem. But over the last decade we’ve seen a substantial increase in the number of women who are dinking, compared to a decade ago. And the main problem, a higher percentage of those women are binge drinking. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts and Stateline magazine, because women are more vulnerable to the damaging health effects of alcohol than men, and because drinking during pregnancy can have devastating effects on a fetus, the federal government and some states have made the growing trend a top public health priority. According to Dr. George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “the harms associated with alcohol use in women escalate more quickly, affecting women at an earlier age than men, and the damage tends to be more severe.” For decades, states have attempted to suppress drinking among men and women of all ages by levying...

According to a recent article in US News & World Report, the combination of weekend parties, Greek life and football games on college campuses represent a path to destruction for college students. The article notes that according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, nearly 40 percent of college students admitted to binge drinking in the past month. In other words, they had enough drinks in a two-hour period to result in blood alcohol concentration levels of 0.08 or more – that’s approximately four drinks for women and five drinks for men. The article goes on to note that the consequences of these drinking habits result in “Thousands of assaults, accidents, injuries, arrests and even deaths every year.” Some of the sober statistics include:• Approximately 1,825 college students ages 18 to 24 die from alcohol-related injuries – including car accidents – annually.• About 696,000 students ages 18 to 24...

A new study suggests having six to nine drinks in one day nearly doubles the risk of heart attack and stroke over the following week. Just having one drink was found to increase the risk of cardiovascular problems over the next 24 hours, according to Reuters. However, having two to four alcoholic drinks may reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke over the following week, the study found. “There appears to be a transiently higher risk of heart attack and strokes in the hours after drinking an alcoholic beverage but within a day after drinking, only heavy alcohol intake seems to pose a higher cardiovascular risk,” lead researcher Elizabeth Mostofsky, Sc.D. of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said in a news release. She said the study findings are “consistent with public health recommendations that advise consumption of no more than two drinks per day for men and...

Excessive alcohol consumption is a global public health issue. In the United States, binge drinking is the most common form - so common, in fact, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports approximately one in six adults binge drinks about four times each month. The information was posted on the website News-Medical.net. Now, a study by University of Missouri School of Medicine researchers shows that chronic alcohol use, when combined with repeated binge drinking, causes more damage to the liver than previously thought. "Heavy binge drinking by those who habitually consume alcohol is the most common cause of liver damage in chronic alcoholic liver disease," said Shivendra Shukla, Ph.D., the Margaret Proctor Mulligan Professor of medical pharmacology and physiology at the MU School of Medicine and lead author of the study. "We know that this behavior causes large fatty deposits in the liver that ultimately impair the organ's ability...

If you asked anyone, they are likely to say that men drink more than women. However, a recent analysis, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research has found the gap between men and women’s drinking levels is diminishing. The findings were published in Medical Daily. Lead author Dr. Aaron White, NIAAA’s senior scientific advisor to the director, noted that the study found that over a period of time, differences in measures such as current drinking, number of drinking days per month, reaching criteria for an alcohol use disorder, and driving under the influence of alcohol in the past year, all narrowed for females and males. “Males still consume more alcohol, but the differences between men and women are diminishing,” noted Dr. White For the study, researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) looked at data from the yearly National Survey on Drug Use and Health,...