Alcohol - Is it Killing YOU?

Pertinent after the usual alcohol indulgence of Christmas.............

Alcohol poisoning kills six people a day in the USA - about 2200 a year.

By that data, Australia with a population of about 24 million compared to the 317 million in the USA, our toll is around 3 per week or 140 per year.  But I suspect it might be more as we Australians probably drink more than many in the USA.

Some recent stats are quite alarming, and strongly support much higher alcohol poisoning events in Australia.

Alcohol consumption accounted for 3.3 per cent of the total burden of disease and injury in Australia in 2003; 4.9 per cent in males and 1.6 per cent in females.

In Australia:

• Alcohol is second only to tobacco as a preventable cause of drug-related death and hospitalisation
  • between 1992 and 2001, more than 31,000 deaths were attributed to risky or high-risk alcohol consumption [ say 3100 per year]
  • in the eight years between 1993–94 and 2000–01, over half a million completed hospital episodes were associated with alcohol
• While the number of emergency department presentations caused by alcohol is unknown, it is likely to account for a large proportion of all presentations
• Alcohol accounts for 13 per cent of all deaths among 14–17-year-old Australians — it has been estimated that one Australian teenager dies and more than 60 are hospitalised each week from alcohol-related causes
• Alcohol is also a significant contributor to premature death and hospitalisation among older Australians — among 65-74-year-olds, almost 600 die every year from injury and disease caused by drinking above the NHMRC 2001 guideline levels, and a further 6,500 are hospitalised.
• Although most surveys show that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are less likely than the general population to drink, alcohol attributable injury and disease are particularly high among this group.
• The rate of alcohol-attributable death among Indigenous Australians is about twice that for the non-Indigenous population, with a particularly strong association apparent between alcohol use and suicide among some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Enough to put the frighteners on???

Also remember the campaign to have a dry or alcohol free January!

More here -http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-topics/alcohol-guidelines/alcohol-and-health-australia