It's Spring Break: How Much Does Heavy Drinking Affect Your Body?

It's the time of year when more
than 1.5 million high school and college students head for warm climates to
soak up the sun and drink large quantities of alcohol. Students who
vacation with friends over spring break drink almost three times as much as
those who stay home with parents or relatives, according to a report in the
September 2007 issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.


Instead of just telling students not to drink heavily, this year try
explaining the science behind how drinking large quantities of alcohol
affects their bodies. This advice comes from The Science Inside Alcohol
Project of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),
which is conducting research on teen drinking and developing an interactive
Web-based science and health curriculum for middle school students.



Here's a quick True or False test students can take to determine how
much they know about the science of ingesting large quantities of alcohol.



1. Most college students do not drink very much during spring break.


FALSE. The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs reports that students
show "bursts" of heavy alcohol use during holidays, vacations and
weekends. Students in this study reported having more than 30 drinks each
over a four day period during spring break.


2. Vomiting, confusion, stupor, and the inability to wake up are the
results of alcohol poisoning.


TRUE. Students may think their friend is just really drunk but he or she
can also have alcohol poisoning, which can be fatal. More than 1,500
college students each year die from unintentional alcohol-related injuries
including car crashes, according to MADD.


3. Black-outs (not remembering what happened while drinking) are a
regular occurrence among college students who drink frequently.


TRUE. Twenty seven percent of students who drank reported at least one
incident of forgetting who they were with or where they were while
drinking. More than half reported having memory loss during drinking at
some point in their lives.


4. Some women can drink as much as men and it won't affect them
differently.


FALSE. Alcohol mixes with body water and women have a higher percentage
of water in their bodies, so the amount of alcohol women drink becomes
highly concentrated quickly.



5. Only a few medications interact harmfully with alcohol.


FALSE. More than 150 medicines should not be mixed with alcohol including
sleeping pills, antihistamines, antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs,
painkillers and also medicines for diabetes, high blood pressure,
epilepsy, antacids and those for motion sickness. Mixing alcohol with
these types of medications can be extremely dangerous.



The Science Inside Alcohol Project of AAAS is funded by the National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).


The Science Inside Alcohol Project of AAAS

niaaa.nih