National Alcohol Screening Day is April 7, 2016.
Drinking too much can harm your health. Excessive alcohol use, including underage drinking and binge drinking, can lead to increased risk of health problems such as injuries, violence, liver disease, and cancer.
Excessive alcohol use can be described as women drinking 4 or more drinks at one time and for men drinking more than 5 drinks at one time. Underage drinking and drinking while pregnant are also examples of excessive drinking.
Heavy drinking is described as women drinking 8 or more drinks per week and men drinking 15 or more drinks per week.
Binge drinking is the main problem with excessive drinking. Binge drinkers average 8 drinks per binge. Binge drinkers binge drink an average of 4 times per month. 1 in 6 Americans (more than 30 million) are binge drinkers. Over 90% of excessive drinkers are binge drinkers.
Excessive drinking causes 88,000 deaths per year; costs about $249 billion per year; binge drinking can leasd to chronic conditions including cancer, heart diseasse and high blood pressure.
If you choose to drink, drink in moderation. For women that is 1 drink per day and for men it is 2 drinks per day.
A standard drink in the US contains 0.6 ounces of alcohol:
For more information go to www.cdc.gov/alcohol. Look for more health related posts from NEW Health.
