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Gender Differences in Binge Drinking

A large research literature shows that women consistently consume less alcohol than men, and they experience fewer social problems resulting from drinking than men, but these gender differences vary culturally, demographically, and historically.

Alcoholic Liver Disease: Pathogenesis and Current Management

Excessive alcohol consumption is a global healthcare problem. The liver sustains the greatest degree of tissue injury by heavy drinking because it is the primary site of ethanol metabolism. Chronic and excessive alcohol consumption produces a wide spectrum of hepatic lesions, the most characteristic of which are steatosis, hepatitis, and fibrosis/cirrhosis. Steatosis is the earliest response to...

Pathophysiology of the Effects of Alcohol Abuse on the Endocrine System

Alcohol can permeate virtually every organ and tissue in the body, resulting in tissue injury and organ dysfunction. Considerable evidence indicates that alcohol abuse results in clinical abnormalities of one of the body’s most important systems, the endocrine system. This system ensures proper communication between various organs, also interfacing with the immune and nervous systems, and is...

Uniting Epidemiology and Experimental Disease Models for Alcohol-Related Pancreatic Disease

Findings from epidemiologic studies and research with experimental animal models provide insights into alcohol-related disease pathogeneses. Epidemiologic data indicate that heavy drinking and smoking are associated with high rates of pancreatic disease. Less clear is the association between lower levels of drinking and pancreatitis. Intriguingly, a very low percentage of drinkers develop clinical...

Alcoholic Myopathy: Pathophysiologic Mechanisms and Clinical Implications

Skeletal muscle dysfunction (i.e., myopathy) is common in patients with alcohol use disorder. However, few clinical studies have elucidated the significance, mechanisms, and therapeutic options of alcohol-related myopathy. Preclinical studies indicate that alcohol adversely affects both anabolic and catabolic pathways of muscle-mass maintenance and that an increased proinflammatory and oxidative...

Alcohol’s Effects on the Brain: Neuroimaging Results in Humans and Animal Models

Brain imaging technology has allowed researchers to conduct rigorous studies of the dynamic course of alcoholism through periods of drinking, sobriety, and relapse and to gain insights into the effects of chronic alcoholism on the human brain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have distinguished alcohol-related brain effects that are permanent from those that are reversible with abstinence...

Alcohol Use Among Special Populations - Editor's Note

Do characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, sex, gender, occupation, or even geographical location influence how likely people are to drink alcohol or to experience problems related to alcohol use? This issue of Alcohol Research: Current Reviews (ARCR) explores this question with an in-depth look at special populations, or groups of people who may be at increased risk for—or protected from...

Drinking Across the Lifespan: Focus on Older Adults

In 2010, when the leading edge of the post–World War II “Baby Boom” reached age 65, the United States began a period of increased growth in its older adult population. By 2030, it is expected that there will be 72.1 million adults age 65 or older living in the United States, almost double the 2008 population. Those older adults will represent 19.3 percent of the U.S. population, compared with 12...

Drinking Over the Lifespan: Focus on College Ages

Approximately 41 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are enrolled in a postsecondary degree-granting institution (National Center for Education Statistics 2013). As a group, college students, and particularly those at residential colleges (Presley et al. 2002), often drink heavily and experience myriad associated negative consequences. This selective review discusses the special characteristics of the...

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