There are many suspected side effects to an all work and no play lifestyle. The stereotypical workaholic has tattered family relationships, a nonexistent exercise regimen and lives on fast-food meals. While this lifestyle is often portrayed in the media, researchers are exploring whether there are connections between work hours and health issues.

A new study published in the January 2012 issue of the journal Addiction explores the connection between work hours and alcohol related problems during the early years of adulthood. The study was conducted by Sheree J. Gibb, David M. Fergusson and Jon Horwood at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

To examine the association between work hours and alcohol use, the researchers conducted a longitudinal analysis of a birth cohort from Christchurch, New Zealand. The participants were all born in 1977 and were followed to the age of 30.

The sample included a total of 1,919 participants. The data included information about working hours and alcohol-related problems collected at the age of 25 or 30.

The researchers measured data relating to frequent alcohol use, the number of symptoms identified as criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence, a diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence and the number of weekly hours spent working in paid employment.

The team also adjusted associations identified between alcohol-related problems and work hours using measures of personality and behavior, academic achievement and IQ, mental health problems, recent life events, parental and family background, and current partner and family situations.

The researchers discovered that longer work hours showed a significant association with more frequent alcohol use. Longer work hours were also associated with higher rates of alcohol abuse and dependence and a greater number of symptoms of alcohol abuse or dependence.

The associations were adjusted with several different confounding factors. Even with accounting for these factors there was a significant connection between working hours and alcohol-related problems. Those who worked more than 50 hours a week were 1.8 to 3.3 times more likely to have an alcohol-related problem than those who did not work. The results did not differ when gender was considered.

While the study does not seek to establish a causal relationship between working hours and increased alcohol use, the results call for further study. Additional research may provide evidence that there is a connection that indicates that increasing work hours is a risk factor for the development of alcohol-related problems. Additional research may also help to identify whether certain types of employment are connected with increased alcohol use when compared with others.

Although public awareness of alcoholism and other alcohol-related problems has improved, the Committee wants the UK Health Departments to clarify the alcohol guidelines to help the public better understand what is considered sensible drinking in a more up-to-date context, such as realizing the number of units in today’s alcoholic beverages like a glass of wine, pint of beer, or shot of liquor. While the MPs do not believe that the existing standards for alcohol units need revision, their studies’ evidence suggests a need to increase the public’s confidence and usage of the UK "sensible drinking" guidelines. The Committee hopes that, if made more prominent to the public, the updated guidelines will help deter the country’s level of excessive and problematic drinking.

The UK Health Departments first introduced to the public the concept of "sensible drinking" in 1981, then the idea of "sensible limits" in 1987. Also backed by the medical Royal Colleges, the Health Departments’ definition of sensible limits became 14 units of alcohol for women, and 21 units for men per week. By the mid-1990s when scientific evidence surfaced suggesting that alcohol consumption may be linked to a reduction in risk for coronary heart disease, the UK Health Department again reevaluated the guidelines, updating the "sensible limits" within a daily rather than weekly format. In its report "Sensible Drinking" released in 1995, the then-revised guidelines suggested that women should consume no more than two to three units per day, and men no more than three to four units on a regular basis.

However, the MPs were concerned that the message for safe drinking was not being communicated effectively to the public due to the existing guideline’s language, particularly the seemingly encouraging message that alcohol can be consumed daily by any adult. Furthermore, the Committee did not find a consensus among health experts regarding the health benefits of alcohol, and that the daily guidelines which are intended for the whole adult population is misleading since the preventive quality of alcohol consumption is only relevant to men over the age of 40 and post-menopausal women.

In addition to clarifying the language, the Committee believes that the guidelines should include a recommendation to refrain from drinking some days of the week in order to prevent the risks involved with various drinking patterns and to avoid hazardous situations from operating machinery while intoxicated. For example, the Committee proposes that the guidelines should emphasize the immediate risks associated with heavy drinking sessions along with the chronic risks associated with long-term drinking habits. The Committee hopes the reformed guidelines will help the general public, the government, the alcoholic beverage industries, and anti-alcohol groups to become accustomed to following these ‘sensible’ guidelines.

The MPs have suggested that the Health Departments should evaluate the same evidence used for its study to conclude whether the proposed revisions to the guidelines should be made, such as updating the guideline’s language, the inclusion of evidence regarding the risks and benefits of alcohol to health, and drinking’s impact on various drinking behaviors. To ensure a consensus regarding the guidelines, the Committee recommends the Health Departments to create a newly formed "expert group" containing independent scientific and medical experts of various fields and civil servants to conduct such a review.

Currently, the UK government is negotiating with the alcohol industry to guarantee that at least 80% of all alcoholic products for sale will contain labels with the product’s alcoholic unit content alongside the Health Departments’ guidelines. The new label initiative is set to be reached by December 2013, but the Committee is encouraging the government to finalize the initiative by the end of 2012.

The report shows that binge drinking is more common than previous studies have indicated and the adults most often participating are over the age of 65. Approximately 17 percent of the national population engaged in binge drinking, which equates to one in six people.

The report gives a definition for binge drinking as the consumption of at least five alcoholic drinks in a single sitting for males and at least four drinks in a single sitting for women.

The CDC’s Vital Signs report includes information for 2010, and the results of the study show that there is an increased level of binge drinking, up from 15 percent of American adults. The rate had held constant for over 15 years.

Most commonly participating in binge drinking are young adults aged 18 to 34 years. Adults who reported the most frequent binge drinking, however, were over the age of 65. Older adults indicated that they engaged in binge drinking 5.5 times in each month. By contrast, other adults who reported binge drinking did so about four times per month.

Young adults aged 18 to 24 years had the largest percentage of binge drinkers at 28.2 percent and reported consuming the most alcoholic beverages in a binge drinking session at 9.3 drinks.

CDC substance abuse and mental health services administrator Pamela Hyde explained in the report that not only does the behavior of adults have a significant effect on public health, but it also provides an example to youth under the legal drinking age about what they should expect alcohol-related choices to look like.

Hyde says that in order to prevent long-term problems for future generations of legal-age drinkers, there needs to be a change in the adults who are currently binge drinking.

The information for the report was collected by conducting a phone survey in 48 states. One important change to the survey this year was the inclusion of cell phone surveys, which may have increased participation by younger adults.

The report also included information about the consequences related to binge drinking. For instance, binge drinking results in over half of the 80,000 deaths connected to excessive drinking. The economic impact of binge drinking is significant as well, with the majority of the $223.5 billion related to excessive drinking tied to binge drinking.

A new study provides evidence that living with a loved one may be especially important for those who struggle with alcohol dependence. The research, published in PLoS Medicine, suggests that living alone is associated with a higher risk of death related to alcohol consumption.

In the past, the idea that living alone might provide an additional risk to those who are alcohol dependent has not been accepted by the general population of healthcare professionals, those who impact policy related to alcohol-related treatment, or the general public.

However, researchers from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, led by Kimmo Herttua, found that there was a significantly higher number of alcohol-related deaths among those by themselves when compared to those living with others following a 2004 reduction in alcohol prices. The price reduction’s impact on the death rates of those living alone suggests that those living with others were less vulnerable to the impact of alcohol being more available.

The researchers examined data on deaths in Finland recorded between 2000 and 2007, obtaining information on approximately 80 percent of all deaths. They determined that about 18,200 deaths were impacted by alcohol. The causes were, specifically, liver disease, alcohol poisoning, and other alcohol-related situations such as vehicular accidents, injury and cardiovascular complications due to alcohol consumption. About two-thirds of the deaths related to alcohol occurred in individuals who lived alone.

The researchers also found that for those living alone, especially older adults aged 50 to 69 years, the alcohol price reduction was linked to a significant jump in alcohol-related deaths. For the years 2000 to 2003, males living alone were 3.7 times more likely to die as a result of liver disease than their married or cohabitating counterparts. After the price reduction, however, the rate increased to 4.7 times as likely to die of liver disease as their married or cohabitating counterparts. There were similar patterns exhibited among women, though their death rates were lower than those for men.

The authors explain that the results show that living alone is a risk for increased likelihood of death from alcohol-related complications, when the individual has a history of alcohol disorders. These results were consistent despite differences in gender, socioeconomic status and specific cause of death.

According to a recent Medical News Today article, Domenico Palli and his colleagues collected data on over 2,000 alcoholics. These alcoholics were mostly middle-aged and were treated from April 1985 to September of 2001.

The study revealed that there is a correlation between alcohol consumption and mortality. They found that alcoholics were at a greater risk for mortality for such diseases as diabetes and diseases of the cardiovascular, immunological, nervous, respiratory and digestive systems.

Those cancers that were associated with consuming alcohol at the highest rates were cancers in the larynx, liver, oral cavity and cancer of the pharynx. There was also an increased risk for other types of cancers including esophagus, breast, pancreas and rectum cancer. Just a little more than one glass of alcohol can increase your risk of developing 14 types of cancer and 60 other diseases.

Doctors and clinicians need to be aware of the necessity of early detection when it comes to harmful and hazardous consumption. One test for the general population that is beneficial in revealing alcohol abuse is The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Alcohol prevention awareness needs to promote the facts of the damage alcohol can cause.

For their investigation, lead researcher Anna Söderpalm Gordh of the Sahlgrenska Academy and her colleagues sought to discover whether stress influences predisposed individuals’ likelihood to consume alcohol, and if stress alters their perception of alcohol’s effects. The researchers conducted a study involving 58 volunteers who were divided into two groups-those with a family history of alcoholism and those without a family history of alcoholism. All the volunteers were then randomly assigned to two different laboratory sessions, one of which involved the stressful task of publicly solving difficult mathematical problems while under a time constraint. After both laboratory sessions, the participants were permitted to consume up to six alcoholic drinks or a placebo, depending on which laboratory session they had participated in first, as way to measure their desire to consume alcohol when stressed.

In their findings, the researchers discovered that participants with a family history of alcoholism consumed more alcohol following a stressful situation than participants without a family history of the disorder. According to the researchers, the combination of stress and alcohol consumption may magnify the feelings of reward in individuals with a family history of alcoholism, leading them to choose to consume more alcohol than normal. Predisposed individuals’ propensity to consume excessive alcohol when stressed, the researchers caution, also causes a number of negative outcomes, such as the development of long-term alcohol dependency. Because the consumption of alcohol was also shown to lower stress levels in the participants with a family history of alcoholism, the researchers advise that predisposed individuals should seek alternate methods of relaxation, such as meditation or exercise, to help them manage stress in a healthy way.

Children of alcoholic parents are known to carry a 50% chance of acquiring a drinking problem themselves during their lifetime. However, Gordh’s study helps better explain why predisposed individuals experience a higher risk for alcoholism based on the link between stress and perception of alcohol. The new study has recently been published in the journal Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behaviour.

Peninsula Health, in Melbourne, conducted a study of more than 100 retiree-age and older people. Two-thirds were labeled as excessive alcohol drinkers, and more than 10 percent were considered at risk of developing health problems due to their alcohol intake.

Studies revealed that older Australians binge drink for different reasons than the younger generation. Psychologist Stephen Bright, designer of the OWL program (Older Wiser Lifestyle), said that older drinkers often drink out of grief and loneliness, while younger drinkers binge drink to enjoy parties and social gatherings. He has had patients of OWL who have admitted to drinking excessively and regularly after the loss of a spouse and after the loss of friends and social contacts through retirement.

Hidden dangers can sneak up on the older generation when they drink out of grief or habit. While younger Australians may drink excessively at social occasions, studies show that older Australians tend to drink more often, more regularly. With these regular, casual drinks they may not realize how much alcohol they are really consuming over time. Another impact this age group must consider is the serious complications that could occur when they mix alcohol and prescription drugs. Bright encourages doctors to counsel their patients carefully on the implications of mixing certain drugs with alcoholic beverages.

Bright’s OWL program is designed to aid older citizens in making wise choices about not consuming alcohol excessively after they have assessed their drinking habits. They also discuss with them how much alcohol is safe to consume with medications they are currently taking. Bright touts the benefits of such a necessary program for seniors who may just need some education and guidance in order to stay safe and healthy, and sees promise in it helping more than just local older citizens if it were to branch out nationally.

There is not one quick fix to this problem of excessive consumption of alcohol by older persons. He stresses that each individual would have to consider what medications might interfere and what health problems the alcohol may aggravate. But with the findings of this study, it is apparent that there needs to be more communication and education with the older population on the dangers of alcohol consumption.

A recent online news post states that experts analyzed the brain functions of over 40 people, one-third of them being women, and found that women are apt to suffer a 50 percent drop in the number of serotonin functions after only four years of heavy drinking. Kristina Berglund, the lead author of the study, says the research findings show that the damage is especially rapid for women.

Berglund explained that they were not surprised to find the impaired serotonin function in the excessive drinkers’ brains, but they were surprised by how much more in danger women were than men in regard to brain functioning. Berglund emphasized the danger of how the functioning of the brain was impaired and was especially concerned with the rapid nature of the damage.

Another report conducted by the Health Research Board exposed an increase of over 40 percent in the number of cases for treatment of alcohol abuse in the past six years. The report further noted alcohol as the root of problems for treatment of drug cases, with over 42,000 cases in the five years between 2005 and 2010.

The authors are concerned about how quickly the female brain can incur damage caused by excessive alcohol consumption.

The Salvation Army’s Glenn Whittaker is concerned that in the past decade the organization has seen the number of youths, ages 14-18, with alcohol problems rise from 8.9 percent to 22.1 percent. Numbers have also increased for youths being admitted to emergency centers for behavioral problems such as acute mental illness and aggression. Whittaker hopes that this study will make people aware that alcohol and mental illness are often linked.

Market researcher, Roy Morgan, surveyed 638 Australians in his study and found that while most people know or assume that alcohol could make their anxiety, depression or other mental problems worse, they are still recklessly consuming alcohol. According to the Ted Noffs Foundation, a support group for youths with drug and alcohol problems, after a night of drinking an excessive amount of alcohol, 7 percent of people reported feeling depressed or anxious.

Programs and literature are plentiful about the harmful effects of substances like heroin and cocaine. Youths are often educated about how addictive and harmful these illegal substances are. Alcohol abuse programs also exist, yet alcohol is more readily available to the public.

The public may assume that using illegal substances would cause more mental illnesses than drinking alcohol, but the Ted Noffs Foundation asserts that the contrary is true. While taking either substance is harmful to a person’s mental health, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol actually affects mental health more than illegal substances.

Whittaker finds hope in the finding that 80 percent of the people surveyed are aware that rather than solving mental problems, alcohol would only exacerbate them. This would indicate that most people are knowledgeable about the harmful relationship between alcohol abuse and poor mental health. His greatest concern is that even with all this knowledge and common sense, people are still falling prey to excessive drinking and are even using those drinks to wash away the mental problems that plague them.

Dr. Katherine Keyes and her colleagues at the Mailman School Of Public Health combed through 31 previous studies about alcohol consumption and identified several major new trends. Baby boomers and senior citizens — Americans born after World War II — are binge drinking more often and developing more alcohol abuse disorders. Binge drinking is defined as heavy episodic drinking for the purpose of intoxication, or five drinks in a row in one sitting for men and four drinks for women.

Dr. Keyes found that the number of people who do not drink at all has decreased. Among adults over 18, over 40% of women and 27% of men told researchers they had not had a drink in the past year.

More women are drinking more often and more heavily, probably because their roles in society have changed and they now enter more environments that are alcohol-friendly. Women born after World War II not only have to carry out traditional roles but they are also going to college and entering the workplace in great numbers. The study found that 20% of women had three drinks a day, compared to 42% of men.

“It seems like the introduction of more women into the workforce, and more upwardly mobile women — while that has many positive benefits to society, it is also reducing social sanctions on drinking. It is becoming more and more acceptable for women to drink,” Dr. Keyes said. “Environment increases the risk for alcoholism. While genetics play a substantial role, the generational differences between those born before and after World War II indicate that factors in the environment such as policies, laws, social norms, availability, and broader social context also contribute substantially to the underlying risk for alcohol use disorders in the population.”

This study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical And Experimental Research.

Some experts commented on this study, noting that women who drink excessively put themselves at greater risk than do men who drink in the same amounts. Women metabolize alcohol differently than men do, because their bodies are smaller and have less water content. They can become intoxicated more quickly and after consuming fewer drinks than men. Women who drink heavily are at greater risk for sexual assault and domestic violence.

“This study empirically shows us the drinking trends are impacting women,” said Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, an addiction specialist. “After World War II, the role of women changed. More women entered the workplace, but they were also expected to be good wives and mothers. They have latched on to alcohol as a coping mechanism because it is readily available and socially acceptable.”

Another recent study found that alcohol is linked to breast cancer in women. Previous studies have shown that alcohol is a carcinogen that is a risk factor for liver, colorectum, and esophagus cancers. The body converts alcohol to acetaldehyde, a chemical similar to formaldehyde. Acetaldehyde causes DNA damage that in turn triggers cell abnormalities.

The majority of people convert acetaldehyde into acetate, a harmless substance, when they drink alcohol, but those who cannot are at greater risk for cancer if they drink.

The study that found the link between alcohol and breast cancer appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical And Experimental Research.