Washington - Nearly one in four American high school students and one in seven adults binge drink, a public health danger that claims 40 000 lives a year in the United States, a study showed on Tuesday.
Calling it a “major public health problem”, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defined binge drinking as having five or more drinks within a couple of hours for men and four or more drinks in a couple of hours for women.
The CDC found that about 15 percent of US adults, or 33-million Americans, binge drink, a rate that has stayed the same for more than 15 years.
Among high school students, the prevalence of binge drinking is even higher: nearly a quarter of high school students said they binge drank.
Whites and Hispanics were more likely to binge drink than blacks, and binge drinking was most commonly reported by better-off people from households with incomes of $75 000 a year or more, the CDC said.
The bouts of heavy drinking increase the risk of being involved in a fatal car crash, contracting a sexually transmitted disease, dating violence, and drug overdoses, CDC director Thomas Frieden said.
It can also harm a developing foetus if a woman drinks to excess while pregnant.
Excessive alcohol use - which includes but is not restricted to binge drinking - is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States and can lead to health problems including liver disease, certain cancers, heart disease and stroke, the CDC said.
The CDC study was based on data gathered in 2009 from 412 000 US adults aged 18 years and older and 16 000 high school students. - Sapa-AFP