Alcohol Linked to Violence

If you close to a liquor store, you have a pretty good chance of being assaulted. So says Canadian researchers.

The researchers identified 3,212 people over the age of 13 who had been hospitalized, because of a serious assault, over a 32-month period. They then looked at the amount of alcohol sold at the liquor store nearest to the victims’ homes the day before the assault, as well as a control period a week before the assault occurred.

Researchers found that for every doubling in alcohol sales, the overall risk of being hospitalized for assault increased by 13 percent — and the risk of assault was 41 percent higher at peak alcohol sale times than when sales were lowest.

A total of 1,150 assaults — 36 percent of all assaults — involved the use of a sharp or blunt weapon, and 1,532 — 48 percent of all assaults — rose during an unarmed brawl or fight.

College Students Drink More at Football Games

A study from The University of Texas at Austin found that college students drink more alcohol at football games compared to New Year’s and Halloween.

Compared to non-game Saturdays, male college students increased their drinking for all games. Women who tended to spend a significant amount of time with friends drank more heavily during away games. Psychologists found those women, particularly lighter drinkers, were more likely to engage in risky behaviors following alcohol consumption. The study appears in the November issue of Addictive Behaviors.

Underage Drinking

This article suggests that children often start using alcohol between the fourth and sixth grade.  This is stunning.

Donovan gathered data from four U.S. surveys on children and alcohol
ranging from the 1990s until 2005. The most recent survey, conducted
from 2004-2005 and including about 25,000 students, shows that about 7
percent of fourth-graders, more than 8 percent of fifth-graders, and
about 13 percent of sixth-graders had drunk beer, liquor, or wine
coolers in the past year.

Alcohol survey

Did you happen to read the new NIH press release?? Well, it is a couple of days old. The press release states that in 2001 to 2002 30 percent of U.S. adults had met diagnostic criteria for an alcohol use disorder. That is a lot of people!

Of those with alcohol dependence, only 24.1 percent had received any type of treatment, broadly defined to include treatment either by a physician or other health professional, or by 12-step programs, crisis centers, employee assistance programs, or others. Of those with alcohol abuse, only 7.0 percent had received treatment. Although average age of alcohol dependence onset was 22.5 years, average age of first treatment was 29.8-a lag time of 8 years. Average age of alcohol abuse onset was 21.9 years, but average age of first treatment was 32.1-a lag time of 10 years.

Irish men bite

The July issue of the Emergency Medicine Journal, summarizes the results of 96 human bite cases admitted to the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Hand Surgery at St. James Hospital, in Ireland, for the years 2003 to 2005. The study found that 92% of the patients who suffered a human bite were male. The study also found that 86% of the cases involved alcohol.

The bottom line is, if you get into a fight in Ireland and you are drinking Guinness, don’t get bit.

The study didn’t include so-called “fight bites” which occur, for
example, when someone punches you in the face, and your teeth happen to cut that guy’s fist, although that is also, technically, a bite.

Get drunk faster after bariatric surgery

Planning on getting bariatric surgery? Are you one of the 150,000 Americans who have had the surgery? Then pay attention to this press release from the American Society for Bariatric Surgery.

A new US study suggests that people who have bariatric surgery (gastric bypass) to lose weight are likely to get drunk faster when they drink alcohol and take longer to get sober.

Russian men drinking cologne

Russian men are consuming beer, wine, cologne and cleaning agents for cheap highs. This study looked at 1,700 men who died in Russia and compared them to the same number of alive control studies. The link below is to Bloomberg.com

Researchers studied 1,750 men who died between 2003 and 2005 as well as the same number of control cases who were still alive, according to the study, published today in the medical journal The Lancet.

Russian men are more likely to drink products such as cologne or cleaning agents not meant for consumption because they are as much as six times cheaper than alcohol meant to be drunk, the scientists, led by David Leon of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Health.

Alcohol assessment

Worried you or a loved one is drinking to much?  Go to MayoClinic.com to take an alcohol self assessment.  It is a simple interactive survey that is easy for everyone.
Take the alcohol assessment by clicking here.

Intimate partner violence effected by where you live

The journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has published research in regards to intimate partner violence. Medical news Today reports that partner violence has many contributing pieces, these include:

1. Heavy drinking has consistently been linked to an increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV).
2. New findings indicate that drinking patterns as well as neighborhood characteristics can influence IPV.
3. While specific effects differ by gender; women who are the heaviest drinkers are at elevated risk for mutual IPV despite the context of their neighborhood.

Follow this article at Medical News Today.

“Social disorganization theory, along with other macro-sociological theories, incorporate the larger environmental context of people’s interactions within their neighborhood context into explanations of the conditions under which problem behaviors such as IPV may grow and thrive,” explained Cunradi. “IPV, like child abuse, typically is a ‘private’ event that occurs in the home; social disorganization theory suggests that it is essential to consider the neighborhood conditions in which the home is located.”

Alcohol traffic deaths

Preliminary reports suggest alcohol related traffic deaths are at a 14 year  high.  This is according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  The total increase is about 2.4%.  Total alcohol related deaths were 17,941 in 2006.

Follow this link to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration