Deaths and disabilities from alcohol use disorders (AUD) linked to 3 percent of all adult deaths in the United States
Though researchers were expecting that the death toll from AUD will be higher than previously recorded, they weren't expecting such a drastic difference, researchers revealed in a press release. Previous estimations suggest heavy drinking is a risk factor for more than 200 diseases or injuries. To quantify the influence of heavy drinking on the severity of these diseases, researchers analyzed information from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions and the burden of disease study of the National Institutes of Health and found that AUD was linked to three percent of all deaths in adults 18 and older in the United States, a press statement revealed
Alcohol use disorders contributed even more significantly to a measure of disease burden known as years lived with disability (YLD), with 1,785,000 YLD for men and 658,000 YLD for women in 2005.
Stuart Gitlow, M.D., psychiatrist and president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine agreed that alcohol is definitely linked to burden of disease in the United States.
"But the problem is everyone in the field defines AUD, a fairly new term, differently. For example, alcohol can lead to morbidity such as in traffic accidents, but this may have nothing to do with addiction, abuse and dependence," he said in a press release.
According to Gitlow, appropriate measures regarding alcohol use need to be implemented to curb this growing number. These include restrictions on usage, controlled availability of alcohol, increasing alcohol taxes and ban of advertisement or promotion of the beverage. The same long-term perspective as used with tobacco needs to be adopted to deal with this problem too.
"Today, at the ongoing high societal rate that alcohol is consumed in the U.S., there is little that can be done to prevent it. But the simple truth is alcohol has significant risks and minimal benefits," the researcher concluded.
