Women drink more on average
Researchers found out that alcohol consumption among women during the Covid-19 pandemic has increased. Women drank about 5.4 days per month as compared to their 2019 average of 4.6 days. According to the study in JAMA Network Open, women drank heavily on average of 0.6 days a month during the pandemic compared to 0.4 before.
Alcohol consumption rate
According to Nielsen, there was a 21% increase in off-premise alcohol sales in the week ending June 13 this year as compared to the year before. However, it wasn’t clear how much more people were actually drinking.
However, men remain the biggest alcohol drinkers, although the results are uncertain. These results are just self-reporting and may be some inaccurate.
Definition of excessive drinking
Excessive drinking includes binge drinking, heavy drinking, and any drinking by people younger than age 21 or pregnant women.
For men, five or more drinks within a couple of hours. In contrast, four or more drinks for women.
For men, 15 or more drinks per week. For women, 8 or more drinks per week.
Health risk due to heavy drinking
Studies reliably show that heavy alcohol consumption is detrimental to health and a number one preventable reason for death. Over time, excessive alcohol use can cause the event of different chronic diseases and other serious health problems. Organ damage is the most serious problems.
Increases the risk of alcoholic fatty liver, which alters the liver’s metabolism of fats. Over a certain period, will lead to long-term inflammation, called alcoholic hepatitis. Then cause scar tissue and finally causing it to be hard and nodular, known as cirrhosis.
Cause pancreatitis, which is a very painful inflammation of the pancreas.
Alcohol will cause blurred vision, memory lapses, difficulty walking and slowed latency. It alters the brain receptors and neurotransmitters. So, it interferes with a person’s cognitive function, moods, emotions, and reactions on multiple levels. Because alcohol could be a central system (CNS) depressant, it causes difficulty with processing information and poses challenges with solving simple problems. Until the age of 24 years, the brain continues to be developing. As a result, young adults are more prone to the damaging effects of alcohol.
High blood pressure, stroke, angina and heart failure will occur due to long-term consumption of alcohol. Stroke is the main consequences of binge drinking.
All these effects may in the end cause to death. Besides that, cancer, osteoporosis, immune system dysfunction, vitamin and nutrition deficiency and problems with gastric acid. These are all the consequences of alcohol.
Last but not least, alcohol increases the risk of getting accident and injury. Car accident, family violence and other social problems may be linked to over alcohol consumption.
Find out other more interesting hobbies during this period
During this pandemic, a lot of stuff we can do other than alcohol consumption. Although ones need alcohol for controlling their emotion, we must give it a limit.
More Information About:
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- Recovered Covid-19 Patients May Experience Side-effects
- Researchers: Women drinking more since the pandemic
- Alcohol and Public Health
- Ten health risks of chronic heavy drinking
Prepared by: Jun Nam