-
Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental... Feb 2020Among American Indians/Alaskan Natives (AI/ANs), suicides are disproportionately high among those younger than 40 years of age. This paper examines suicide and alcohol...
BACKGROUND
Among American Indians/Alaskan Natives (AI/ANs), suicides are disproportionately high among those younger than 40 years of age. This paper examines suicide and alcohol intoxication (postmortem BAC ≥ 0.08 g/dl) by age among Whites and AI/ANs to better understand the reasons for the high rate of suicide among AI/ANs for those younger than 40.
METHODS
Data come from the restricted 2003 to 2016 National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), with postmortem information on 79,150 White and AI/AN suicide decedents of both genders who had a BAC test in 32 states of the United States.
RESULTS
Among Whites, 39.3% of decedents legally intoxicated are younger than 40 years of age, while among AI/ANs the proportion is 72.9% (p < 0.001). Multivariable logistic regression with data divided by age shows that in the 18 to 39 age group, AI/ANs are about 2 times more likely than Whites to have a postmortem BAC ≥ 0.08. Veteran status compared to nonveteran, and history of alcohol problems prior to suicide were also associated with BAC ≥ 0.08. Suicide methods other than by firearm and a report of the presence of 2 or more suicide precipitating circumstances were protective against BAC ≥ 0.08. Results for the age group 40 years of age and older mirror those for the younger group with 1 exception: Race/ethnicity was not associated with BAC level.
CONCLUSIONS
The proportion of suicide decedents with a BAC ≥ 0.08 is higher among AI/ANs than Whites, especially among those 18 to 39 years of age. However, acute alcohol intoxication does not fully explain differences in suicide age structure between AI/ANs and Whites.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Age Distribution; Alaska Natives; Alcoholic Intoxication; Blood Alcohol Content; Female; Humans; Male; Population Surveillance; Suicide; White People; Young Adult
PubMed: 31782530
DOI: 10.1111/acer.14251 -
Tidsskrift For Den Norske Laegeforening... Dec 2018The author Edgar Allan Poe is one of many artists who describe how it feels to live with major, involuntary changes of consciousness. Are the large upturns and downturns...
The author Edgar Allan Poe is one of many artists who describe how it feels to live with major, involuntary changes of consciousness. Are the large upturns and downturns in his life attributable to a neurological conditions, or can substance use and depressive thoughts explain these fluctuations?
Topics: Alcoholic Intoxication; Consciousness; Dreams; Famous Persons; History, 19th Century; Humans; Memory; Nervous System Diseases; Poetry as Topic; United States
PubMed: 30539608
DOI: 10.4045/tidsskr.18.0616 -
Alcohol Health and Research World 1998Hangovers are a frequent, though unpleasant, experience among people who drink to intoxication. Despite the prevalence of hangovers, however, this condition is not well... (Review)
Review
Hangovers are a frequent, though unpleasant, experience among people who drink to intoxication. Despite the prevalence of hangovers, however, this condition is not well understood scientifically. Multiple possible contributors to the hangover state have been investigated, and researchers have produced evidence that alcohol can directly promote hangover symptoms through its effects on urine production, the gastrointestinal tract, blood sugar concentrations, sleep patterns, and biological rhythms. In addition, researchers postulate that effects related to alcohol's absence after a drinking bout (i.e., withdrawal), alcohol metabolism, and other factors (e.g., biologically active, nonalcohol compounds in beverages; the use of other drugs; certain personality traits; and a family history of alcoholism) also may contribute to the hangover condition. Few of the treatments commonly described for hangover have undergone scientific evaluation.
Topics: Alcohol-Related Disorders; Alcoholic Intoxication; Ethanol; Headache; Humans; Substance Withdrawal Syndrome
PubMed: 15706734
DOI: No ID Found -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) May 2022Driving under the influence of alcohol is a widespread phenomenon in the US where it is considered a major cause of fatal accidents. In this research, we present Virtual...
Driving under the influence of alcohol is a widespread phenomenon in the US where it is considered a major cause of fatal accidents. In this research, we present Virtual Breathalyzer, a novel approach for detecting intoxication from the measurements obtained by the sensors of smartphones and wrist-worn devices. We formalize the problem of intoxication detection as the supervised machine learning task of binary classification (drunk or sober). In order to evaluate our approach, we conducted a field experiment and collected 60 free gait samples from 30 patrons of three bars using a Microsoft Band and Samsung Galaxy S4. We validated our results against an admissible breathalyzer used by the police. A system based on this concept successfully detected intoxication and achieved the following results: 0.97 AUC and 0.04 FPR, given a fixed TPR of 1.0. Our approach can be used to analyze the free gait of drinkers when they walk from the car to the bar and vice versa, using wearable devices which are ubiquitous and more widespread than admissible breathalyzers. This approach can be utilized to alert people, or even a connected car, and prevent people from driving under the influence of alcohol.
Topics: Alcoholic Intoxication; Automobile Driving; Breath Tests; Ethanol; Gait; Humans; Wearable Electronic Devices
PubMed: 35591269
DOI: 10.3390/s22093580 -
Acta Psychologica Apr 2023The problem of alcohol intoxication is growing and expanding worldwide, which has numerous adverse health and psychological consequences. Thus, it is unsurprising that...
The problem of alcohol intoxication is growing and expanding worldwide, which has numerous adverse health and psychological consequences. Thus, it is unsurprising that there are so many efforts made toward underlying the psychological determinants of alcohol intoxication. While some research found that the belief in drinking is important, other research considers personality traits as a risk factor for alcohol consumption and intoxication, which is backed by empirical evidence. However, previous studies classified individuals as binge drinkers or non-binge drinkers (i.e., binary). Thus, it remains unclear how the Big Five personality traits may relate to the frequency of alcohol intoxication in young people aged between 16 and 21 years old, who are more vulnerable to alcohol intoxication. By using two ordinal logistic regressions on 656 young males with a mean age of 18.50±1.63 years old and 630 female drinkers with a mean age of 18.49±1.55 years old who have ever been intoxicated during the past four weeks from Wave 3 (collected via face-to-face interviews or online surveys between 2011 and 2012) UKHLS (United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study), the current research found that Extraversion has a positive association with the frequency of alcohol intoxication in both male (OR = 1.35, p < 0.01, 95 % C.I. [1.13, 1.61]) and female (OR = 1.29, p = 0.01, 95 % C.I. [1.06, 1.57]) drinkers whereas only Conscientiousness (OR = 0.75, p < 0.01, 95 % C.I. [0.61, 0.91]) is negatively connected to the frequency of alcohol intoxication in female drinkers.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Adolescent; Young Adult; Adult; Alcoholic Intoxication; Alcohol Drinking; Longitudinal Studies; Risk Factors; Personality
PubMed: 36812800
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103865 -
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma,... Feb 2020Guidelines recommend endotracheal intubation in trauma patients with a Glasgow coma scale (GCS) < 9 because of the loss of airway reflexes and consequential risk of...
BACKGROUND
Guidelines recommend endotracheal intubation in trauma patients with a Glasgow coma scale (GCS) < 9 because of the loss of airway reflexes and consequential risk of airway obstruction. However, in patients with acute alcohol intoxication guidelines are not clear. Thus, we aimed to determine the proportional incidence of intubation in alcohol intoxication and compare the clinical characteristics of intubated and non-intubated patients, as well as reasons for intubation in all patients and in the subgroup of patients with reduced GCS (< 9) but without traumatic brain injury.
METHODS
We performed a retrospective analysis of all consultations to an urban ED in Switzerland that presented with an acute alcohol intoxication between 1st June 2012 and 31th Mai 2017. Patient and emergency consultations' characteristics, related injuries, intubation and reason for intubations were extracted. As a subgroup analysis, we analysed the patients with a GCS < 9 without a traumatic brain injury.
RESULTS
Of 3003 consultations included from 01.06.2012 to 31.05.2017, 68 were intubated, leading to a proportional incidence of 2.3% intubations in alcohol-intoxication. Intubated patients had a lower blood alcohol concentration (1.3 g/kg [IQR 1.0-2.2] vs. 1.6 g/kg [IQR1.1-2.2], p = 0.034) and less often suffered from chronic alcohol abuse (1183 [39.4%] patients vs. 14 [20.6%], p = 0.001) than non-intubated patients. Patients with trauma were intubated more often (33 patients [48.5%] vs. 742 [25.3%], p < 0.001). In subgroup analysis, 110/145 patients (74.3%) were not intubated; again, more intubated patients had a history of trauma (9 patients [25.7%] vs. 10 [9.1%], p = 0.011).
CONCLUSIONS
Intubation in alcohol-intoxicated patients is rare and, among intoxicated patients with GCS < 9, more than two thirds were not intubated in our study - without severe complications. Trauma in general, independent of the history of a traumatic brain injury, and a missing history of chronic alcohol abuse are associated with intubation, but not with blood alcohol concentration. Special caution is required for intoxicated patients with trauma or other additional intoxications or diseases.
Topics: Acute Disease; Adult; Alcoholic Intoxication; Blood Alcohol Content; Emergency Service, Hospital; Female; Glasgow Coma Scale; Humans; Intubation, Intratracheal; Male; Middle Aged; Retrospective Studies
PubMed: 32041639
DOI: 10.1186/s13049-020-0707-2 -
Internal and Emergency Medicine Jan 2023We assessed long-term mortality and its association with chronic alcohol-related diseases in patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) because of acute...
Mortality and its association with chronic alcohol-related diseases in patients admitted to the emergency department for acute alcoholic intoxication: retrospective cohort study.
We assessed long-term mortality and its association with chronic alcohol-related diseases in patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) because of acute alcoholic intoxication (AAI). A retrospective cohort study was performed at the ED of Sant'Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Bologna, Italy. 3304 patients, corresponding to 6415 admissions for AAI, who accessed the ED from January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2017, were studied. The ED electronic registry system was used to assess living status on 08 May 2020 and to obtain the prespecified potential predictors, i.e., age at first admission, sex, alcohol use disorder (AUD), substance use disorder (SUD), more than 1 admission to ED for trauma, mental and behavioral disorders, neurological disorders, and cardiovascular disease. The median follow-up time was 9.3 years and the time on risk was 30,053 person years (PY) with a death rate corresponding to 4.42 (95% CI 3.74-5.26) per 1000 PY (n = 133 deaths). The death rate was higher in patients with AUD (17.30) than in those without AUD (1.98) and in those with SUD (13.58) than in those without SUD (3.80). Lastly, there was a clearly higher death rate among AUD+ SUD+ (20.89) compared to AUD-SUD-patients (1.74). At multivariable Cox regression, AUD, SUD, and liver cirrhosis were strong and independent predictors of time-to-death. Using standardized mortality ratios, a clear excess of mortality was evident for all the age bands from (40-45] to (60-65] years. Mortality is higher in AAI than in the general population and chronic alcohol-related diseases are strongly associated with it.
Topics: Humans; Alcoholism; Alcoholic Intoxication; Retrospective Studies; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Substance-Related Disorders; Emergency Service, Hospital
PubMed: 36199001
DOI: 10.1007/s11739-022-03114-6 -
Australian Family Physician Mar 2011Combining energy drinks (such as 'Red Bull(®)') with alcohol is becoming increasingly popular, particularly among young people. However, as yet, limited research has... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Combining energy drinks (such as 'Red Bull(®)') with alcohol is becoming increasingly popular, particularly among young people. However, as yet, limited research has been conducted examining the harms associated with this form of drinking.
OBJECTIVE
To review current evidence associated with combining energy drinks with alcohol and provide recommendations for addressing this issue within primary care.
DISCUSSION
Combining alcohol with energy drinks can mask the signs of alcohol intoxication, resulting in greater levels of alcohol intake, dehydration, more severe and prolonged hangovers, and alcohol poisoning. It may also increase engagement in risky behaviours (such as drink driving) as well as alcohol related violence. General practitioners should be aware of the harms associated with this pattern of drinking, and provide screening and relevant harm reduction advice.
Topics: Alcohol Drinking; Alcoholic Intoxication; Caffeine; Dehydration; Energy Drinks; Ethanol; General Practice; Heart Rate; Humans; Paullinia; Sleep
PubMed: 21597509
DOI: No ID Found -
Methods in Molecular Biology (Clifton,... 2018Hypotension, cardiac depression, and elevated microvascular permeability are known problems that complicate resuscitation of patients following traumatic injury,... (Review)
Review
Hypotension, cardiac depression, and elevated microvascular permeability are known problems that complicate resuscitation of patients following traumatic injury, particularly those who are also intoxicated from alcohol consumption. A conscious rat model of combined alcohol intoxication and hemorrhagic shock has been used to study the hemodynamic mechanisms involved. Here, we describe using this model to study microvascular leakage and cardiac electrical activity.
Topics: Alcoholic Intoxication; Animals; Capillary Permeability; Disease Models, Animal; Humans; Microcirculation; Rats; Resuscitation; Shock, Hemorrhagic
PubMed: 29468584
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7526-6_6 -
Journal of Neurochemistry Jun 2014Excessive alcohol consumption is a prominent problem and one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity around the world. Long-term, heavy alcohol consumption is... (Review)
Review
Excessive alcohol consumption is a prominent problem and one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity around the world. Long-term, heavy alcohol consumption is associated with a number of deleterious health consequences, such as cancer, heart and liver disease, a variety of neurological, cognitive, and behavioral deficits. Alcohol consumption is also associated with developmental defects. The causes of alcohol-induced toxicity are presently unclear. One of the mechanisms underlying alcohol toxicity has to do with its interaction with folic acid/homocysteine or one-carbon metabolism (OCM). OCM is a major donor of methyl groups for methylation, particularly DNA methylation critical for epigenetic regulation of gene expression, and its disturbance may compromise DNA methylation, thereby affecting gene expression. OCM disturbance mediated by nutrient deficits is a well-known risk factor for various disorders and developmental defects (e.g., neural tube defects). In this review, we summarize the role of OCM disturbance and associated epigenetic aberrations in chronic alcohol-induced toxicity. In this review, we summarize the role of one-carbon metabolism (OCM) aberrations in chronic alcohol-induced toxicity. OCM is a major donor of methyl groups for methylation reactions, particularly DNA methylation critical for epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Alcohol interference with OCM and consequent reduced availability of methyl groups, improper DNA methylation, and aberrant gene expression can play a causative role in alcohol toxicity.
Topics: Adult; Alcoholic Intoxication; Animals; Carbon; DNA Methylation; Epigenesis, Genetic; Humans; Risk Factors
PubMed: 24521073
DOI: 10.1111/jnc.12677