With the New Year’s Eve around the corner, doctors warn the revellers about potentially fatal consequences of binge drinking.
Binge drinking is defined as consumption of alcohol to get intoxicated, usually in a short amount of time. Though there are no universally accepted definitions in volume-terms for binge drinking, it is widely accepted that the average alcohol processing rate of the human body is around one unit an hour. Any consumption above this could constitute binge drinking which is associated with road accident fatalities and a spike in emergency visits on New Year’s Day.
“We see people coming in with acute alcohol intoxication presenting with severe drowsiness, altered behaviour, vomiting, seizures and even irregular heart beat. The second category is victims of road traffic accidents,” said Srirang Abkari, an Internal Medicine expert of Global Hospitals. He added that many who come in are not used to excessive amounts of alcohol they consume on New Year’s Eve.
Road accidents in the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 usually increase, with police attributing these crashes to binge drinking that causes loss of reflexes. The U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention which recognises binge drinking as health hazard estimates that men consuming five or more drinks in two hours and women consuming four or more in the same time, raise their blood alcohol concentrations enough to increase risk of health problems including potentially fatal alcohol poisoning.
Liver specialists say alcohol tolerance level of Indians is generally lower than that of westerners and should be adhered to. “The acute consequences of binge drinking include acute pancreatitis and severe alcohol hepatitis,” said K.S. Soma Sekhar Rao, a liver specialist at Apollo Hospitals.
According to Dr. Rao, acute pancreatitis presents itself as severe upper abdominal pain and vomiting. In case of alcohol hepatitis, there is loss of appetite, decreased urine output, swelling of feet and in extreme cases the risk of mortality is as high as 60 per cent over the next four weeks.
“It is wrongly assumed that consuming excessive amounts of alcohol is not as bad as regularly consuming alcohol. The damage to liver and pancreas from excessive consumption is severe,” he added.
Rohit P.S.
