4 Troubled Teens Blog

Researchers have found a connection between binge drinking among college students and a decline in their ability to pay attention and use working memory. The findings were particularly troublesome because no one knows if these effects last into later life.

• Researchers studied 95 male and female students from the University of Santiago in northwest Spain. The students were between 18 and 20 years old.
• Forty-two students were classified as binge drinkers; the others did not have a drinking problem.
• The students were hooked up to electrophysiological monitors as they performed tasks associated with attention and working memory.
• The ones who engaged in binge drinking had to put in more effort to complete tasks, although they were able to perform the tasks correctly.

Dr. Florence Kellner said the significance of the research "might be up in the air, because what we don't know really is the long-term impact, which is, will these differences endure in later life? One thing we do know is that young students when they drink heavily tend to clean up their acts quite a bit when they graduate, get jobs and have families, especially when they have children."

This study and Dr. Kellner's comment appeared in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Labels: research, college-students, binge_drinking

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Binge drinkers are at increased risk for contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), according to a new study from the New York City Health Department.

Binge drinking was defined as having five or more drinks on one occasion at least once a month. About 15 percent of New York's adults do this.

Among the teens in the study, 14 percent said they binged within the last four weeks. One in four who drank any alcohol whatsoever reported having multiple sex partners. This group was also more likely to have unprotected sex.

Forty percent of homosexual men who binge drink told researchers they had five or more sexual partner within the past twelve months, putting them at risk for STDs.

The city determined these rates by analyzing data from the New York Health Department 2007 Community Health Survey.

Labels: sexually_transmitted_diseases, binge_drinking

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Adults who work with young people are increasingly concerned about materials they are posting on websites like Facebook and MySpace.

Hundreds of college and high school students are posting pictures of themselves drunk, vomiting and urinating, often half-dressed or naked in settings like toilet stalls. Some of them include their complete names and the names of their schools.

"They're not a thoughtful bunch, by and large," said Robert Carothers, president of the University of Rhode Island and a former member of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse.

He and others point out that potential employers can view at these postings, which often last for years on web searches. Carothers says that he has told students, "Look, these pictures are evidence you're doing something illegal."

However, many on Facebook have the attitude of the anonymous poster who wrote, "It's just something fun. You need to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes."

College binge drinking remains a serious problem on most campuses. The Center on Alcohol and Substance Abuse reported this year that almost 40% of college students participate in binge drinking at least once a year.

Learn more about college binge drinking at DrugRehabTreatment.com

Labels: binge_drinking, social_networking, regrets

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In July, a 17-year-old boy from Denmark died after drinking so much at the Sunny Beach resort that he choked on his vomit. The death has sparked lively debate in many European countries about tours that are organized mainly as binge-drinking trips.

"On the tour operators' websites, Sunny Beach is described as the place 'where you drink until you pass out'. They boast of their pub crawls, 'where we jump between bars and discotheques at 300km an hour to show you how to party in the sun.'"

Though Swedish tour operators have decided to stop offering pub-crawls on their trips and people must now be at least 18-years-old to buy a charter trip, operators in other countries are resisting pressure to change. Read more News24.com. Learn more about the dangers of binge drinking and teen alcohol abuse at DrugRehabTreatment.com.

Labels: binge_drinking, death, teen_alcoholism

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