Binge Drinking May Make You Vulnerable to Dying in Your Sleep- Study.
| by: Marco Reina
Needless to say, binge drinking is absolutely disastrous for health. We have heard it a gazillion times that drinking heavily over longer periods of time can have potentially detrimental effects on an individual’s physical, mental and overall well-being.
Now a new research warns that binge drinking may kill drinkers in their sleep. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in US have warned that heavy consumption of alcohol increases a person’s chances of dying in sleep.
“Alcohol abuse, binge drinking in particular, is thought to be a rite of passage for college students; but in reality it’s a very serious health epidemic in US,” said Peter Hendricks, associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in US.
Binge drinking is the practice of consuming large quantities of alcoholic beverages in a single session- for men consumption of 5 or more drinks in a row, and for women consumption of 4 or more drinks in a row is considered as binge drinking. Binge Drinking happens when a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) reaches to 0.08 grams percent or above.
“As BAC increases, so does alcohol’s effects and risk for harm. Even small increases in BAC can decrease coordination, make a person feel sick and impair judgement,” Megan McMurray, a clinical psychology intern at UAB, said.
“This can lead to injury from falls or car crashes, leave one vulnerable to sexual assault or other acts of violence, and increase the risk for unprotected, unintended intercourse,” she said.
“When BACs get even higher, amnesia or blackouts occur. If a person has signs of alcohol poisoning, it is very dangerous to assume that an unconscious person will be fine by “sleeping it off’,” McMurray said.
Moderate drinking, on the other hand, is defined as intake of up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men, translating to seven or fewer drinks per week and 14 or fewer drinks per week for women and men, respectively.
According to researchers, besides taking a toll on human mind and body binge drinking doubles a person’s risk of death.
According to the researchers, alcohol abuse could impair basic bodily functions, especially the gag reflex, making people prone to choking on their own vomit and dying in their sleep.
Alcohol can also irritate the stomach, making the suppression of the gag reflex especially problematic.
Hendricks recommends that people under the legal drinking age of 21 refrain from ingesting alcoholic beverages, as well as people should be educated about the potential harms of immoderate alcohol use.
