Acute intoxication, such as<unk>  and alcoholism, are known potent risk factors for suicide.<unk>  is also associated with an increased risk of unplanned and unprotected sex, unplanned pregnancies, and an increased risk of HIV infection. 10% of women and 19% of men have reported being assaulted as a result of alcohol. Males who drink more than 35 units of alcohol per week report being physically hurt as a result of alcohol, and 15% report physically hurting others as a result of their<unk> . Almost 16% of binge drinkers report being taken advantage of sexually, and 8% report taking advantage of another person sexually as a result of alcohol within a one-year period. Heavy drinkers cause approximately 183,000 rapes and sexual assaults, 197,000 robberies, 661,000 aggravated assaults, and 1.7 million simple assaults each year.<unk>  has been associated with higher probability of divorce, spousal abuse, and poor job performance.<unk>  can cause adverse effects on the body including effects on blood homeostasis and its circadian variation, cardiac rhythm, ischaemic heart disease, blood pressure, white blood cell activity, female reproductive hormone levels as well as adverse effects on the fetus. There is also evidence from animal studies that<unk>  causes brain damage.<unk>  has been associated with lower abdominal pain in women. Ketoacidosis can occur in individuals who chronically use alcohol excessively and have a recent history of<unk> . Alcohol affects brain development quite significantly especially during adolescence when the brain is still developing. The main lobes that are involved in decision making and complex thought processes are undergoing their final development phase during adolescence and<unk>  can negatively stunt the growth of these frontal lobes. Adolescence and young adulthood A young man lying comatose after a<unk>  session The high levels of<unk>  among young people and the adverse consequences that include increased risk of alcoholism as an adult and liver disease make<unk>  a major public health issue. Recent research has found that young college binge drinkers who drink four or more drinks on more than three occasions in the past two weeks are statistically 19 times more likely to develop alcoholism than non-binge drinkers, though the direction of causality remains unclear. This is particularly interesting, as<unk>  for the sole purpose of getting drunk remains a major health and social problem on college campuses across the United States. Heavy and regular<unk>  during adolescence is associated with an increased risk of alcoholism. Approximately 40% of alcoholics report heavy<unk>  during adolescence. Repeated episodes of excessive<unk> , especially at an early age, are thought to cause a profound increase in the risk of developing an alcohol-related disorder (ICD-10, harmful use/dependence syndrome). Heavy<unk>  is also closely associated with depression. Those with severe depression have higher rates of alcohol use disorder than those with low rates of depression. College students who are depressed are more susceptible to use alcohol than college students who are not depressed. In a study conducted at Harvard University, it was found that about 32% of students surveyed were diagnosable for alcohol use disorder and about 6% were diagnosed as alcohol dependent.<unk>  is also becoming an increasing problem in Australian adolescents, the Australian School Students Alcohol and Drug survey conducted by the National Cancer Council discovered that around 33% of students between years 7 and 11 consumed alcohol in the week leading up to the survey, they also found that 10% of the students participated in<unk>  at a consumption level which is considered dangerous to adults. When the survey results were separated into age groups the findings were that 13% of 15-year-old's and 22% of 17-year-old's had alcohol consumption levels above the daily maximum suggested to adults and that 20% of 17-year-old's had a consumption level of alcohol considered risky to adults. Other risk factors that influence the development of alcohol use disorder include social and genetic factors. Several researchers have found that starting<unk>  before the age of 15 is associated with a fourfold increased risk for developing alcoholism compared to people that delay<unk>  until age 20 or later. It has been estimated by some that if the age at which people started<unk>  could be delayed to age 20, there would be a 50% reduction in the number of cases of alcohol use disorder. However, it is unclear whether this is a causal relationship, or a function of confounding familial (and other) factors associated with both age at first drink and propensity for alcoholism. The main cause of death among adolescents as a result of<unk>  is road traffic accidents; a third of all fatal road traffic accidents among 15- to 20-year-olds are associated with<unk>  alcohol. Cyclists and pedestrians are likely to have less spatial awareness and concentration while travelling after<unk>  and, also, it is more common that adolescents that binge-drink drive drunk or are the passenger of a drunk driver. It has been found that 50% of all head injuries in adolescents in the US are associated with alcohol consumption. Violence and suicide combine to become the third-most-common cause of death associated with<unk>  among adolescents. The suicide risk in adolescents is more than four times higher among binge drinkers than non-binge<unk>  adolescents. Earlier sexual activity, increased changing of sexual partners, higher rate of unwanted pregnancy, higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases, infertility, and alcohol-related damage to the fetus during pregnancy is associated with<unk> . Female binge drinkers are three times more likely to be victims of sexual assault; 50% of adolescent girls reporting sexual assault were under the influence of alcohol or another psychotropic substance at the time. Adolescents who regularly participated in<unk>  for several years show a smaller hippocampus brain region, in particular those who began<unk>  in early adolescence. Heavy<unk>  is associated with neurocognitive deficits of frontal lobe processing and impaired working memory as well as delayed auditory and verbal memory deficits. Animal studies suggest that the neurodegenerative effects of heavy alcohol use during adolescence can be permanent. Research in humans, which utilised sophisticated brain scanning technology suggests that in adolescent teenagers,<unk>  more than four or five drinks once or twice a month results in subtle damage to the teenagers developing brain tissue, in particular the white matter. However, this research is primarily cross-sectional and done with fairly small sample sizes, making causality less certain. Several studies have been conducted to discover if there is a link between<unk>  in adolescent years and becoming a chronic alcohol consumer when they transition into adulthood. A particular study conducted by the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that harmful<unk>  during adolescent years was significantly associated with the continuance of dangerous levels of alcohol consumption into adulthood years.<unk>  is a way for young adolescents to rely alcohol as a way to cope with certain stress or depression. Central nervous system Heavy binge drinkers tend to have delayed auditory and verbal memory and deficits in executive planning function and episodic memory, which are similar to deficits seen in Korsakoff's syndrome. Impairments in spatial working memory and pattern recognition tasks also have been found in heavy binge drinkers. Impulse control is also impaired in binge drinkers, especially female binge drinkers. Additionally, immediate and delayed recall of verbal and visual information is impaired; conversely, semantic organizational ability is better in binge drinkers compared to non-binge drinkers. Studies in adolescents have shown that regular<unk>  may cause long-lasting cognitive impairments, though the threshold needed to produce significant effects remains unclear. Cognitive impairment in adults is also unclear, as one study found no association between<unk>  and cognitive impairment.<unk>  is believed to increase impulsivity due to altered functioning of prefrontal–subcortical and orbitofrontal circuits.<unk>  and alcoholics who have undergone multiple detoxifications is associated with an inability to interpret facial expressions properly; this is believed to be due to kindling of the amygdala with resultant distortion of neurotransmission. Adolescents, females and young adults are most sensitive to the neuropsychological effects of<unk> . Adolescence, in particular early adolescence, is a developmental stage that is particularly vulnerable to the neurotoxic and neurocognitive adverse effects of<unk>  due to it being a time of significant brain development.<unk>  regimes are associated with causing an imbalance between inhibitory and excitatory amino acids and changes in monoamines release in the central nervous system, which increases neurotoxicity and may result in cognitive impairments, psychological problems and in long-term heavy binge drinkers may cause irreversible brain damage in both adolescents and adults. While several rat studies indicate that alcohol is more toxic during adolescence than adulthood, some researchers believe that it remains unclear whether this is also the case in humans. Though heavy<unk>  adolescent humans show impaired brain activity during memory tests and underdeveloped brain structures compared to adolescents who did not binge-drink, they argue that these findings are similar to adults who
Binge drinking
Rubbing alcohol
Binge eating
Alcoholism
Abuse during childbirth
Alcohol dependence
Western pattern diet
Sedentary lifestyle