Headlines
Alcoholism may cut short your life by eight years
London, April 4
Alcohol dependent patients die
about 7.6 years earlier on average than hospital patients without a
history of alcohol addiction, warns a new study.
The study,
published in the journal European Psychiatry, highlights how alcoholism
affects both mental and physical health and calls for early treatment
for addiction.
"Mental problems as well as significant physical
health impairments are associated with alcohol addiction," explained
Dieter Schoepf from the University of Bonn Hospital in Germany.
"Alcoholics
who were treated in British general hospitals for health problems die
an average of 7.6 years earlier than non-alcohol dependent patients;
this is due to the interaction of several concomitant physical
illnesses," Schoepf noted.
For the study, Schoepf and professor
Reinhard Heun from the Royal Derby Hospital in England evaluated patient
data extending over a 12.5-year period from seven general hospitals in
Manchester.
Using these data, the scientists analysed comorbid
physical illnesses of 23,371 hospital patients with alcohol dependence
and compared them with those of a control group of 233,710 randomly
selected patients without alcoholism.
"During the observation
period, approximately one out of five hospital patients with alcoholism
died in one of the hospitals, while only one out of twelve patients in
the control group died," Heun pointed out.
"Through diligent
screening and early treatment of concomitant mental and physical
illnesses, it should be possible to significantly increase the life
expectancy of alcoholic patients," Heun noted.