WesWELL

Want to live longer?

Maybe that seems like something to worry about in the far-flung future, but new research indicates it may boil down to four simple things you can do that will prolong your life by an average of 14 years and improve your overall health in the meantime. The Mayo Clinic Health Letter reports on this research.

Does the bombardment of information on how to improve your health just leave you feeling confused? Try focusing on this straightforward advice:

1. Have no more than two alcoholic beverages a day.
2. Don’t smoke.
3. Get at least the equivalent of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day.
4. Eat five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

According to a recent study published in the January 2008 edition of Public Library of Science Medicine, people who follow those steps live an average of 14 years longer than those who don’t. Mayo Clinic experts would further recommend that women of all ages — and men over 65 — have no more than one drink a day.

For the study, researchers interviewed and examined over 20,000 reasonably healthy men and women aged 45 to 79, living in Norfolk County, United Kingdom. Their health status was checked again after many years.

Researchers found that regardless of sex, social status — or even body weight — those who followed none of the recommendations listed above had four times the risk of dying over the course of a decade than did those who followed all of the recommendations. Not smoking offered the greatest benefits in terms of survival.

Discussion Question: If you knew you could live longer by doing these four things, would you? Or if you are already doing these things, does it help motivate you to maintain these choices? And what would you do with the extra time?

If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching the podcasts for the Midwest Teen Sex Show, now’s your chance. Their latest installment is on Sex, Drugs & Alcohol.

or view it here.

When discussing the 21-year-old legal age to consume alcohol in the United States, many people cite lower ages and generally more permissive attitudes around alcohol in the European Union as evidence that we’re doing things all wrong in the U.S.  This argument often implies that there simply aren’t the problems in Europe that we experience here.  Yet, the Washington Post reports that problems do exist and are being experienced by younger and younger teens all the time:

“We’ve seen a whole series of new trends over the past five to 10 years,” said Michael Musalek, director of the Anton Proksch Institute, a renowned Austrian detox center that claims to be Europe’s largest.

“For one, the age of alcohol beginners keeps declining. Today, 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds are already drinking — some on a regular basis,” he said.

Hospital officials notice the same trend.

At Vienna’s General Hospital, up to three teens are admitted each weekend after drinking escapades escalate, often leaving them so intoxicated they become unconscious, pediatrician Zsolt Szepfalusi said. More cases are common during special events, such as the city’s annual Danube Island Fest in the summer, he said. read full article…

Discussion Questions: Why is Europe held up as an ideal model when it is experiencing problems similar to our own? What do you see as some of the factors that contribute to binge or “coma” drinking in both the U.S. and Europe? What can be done to reduce the problems?

From ScienceDaily…

Women and men tend to have different types of stress-related psychological disorders. Women have greater rates of depression and some types of anxiety disorders than men, while men have greater rates of alcohol-use disorders than women. A new study of emotional and alcohol-craving responses to stress has found that when men become upset, they are more likely than women to want alcohol.

read full article…

Discussion: How do you feel these differences play out on campus?

As if April isn’t busy enough around Wesleyan, it has also been designated Alcohol Awareness Month nationally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed an FAQ to address some of the basic questions around alcohol. Click on any of the links below to be taken to their FAQ:

 Introduction to alcohol

• What is alcohol?
• How does alcohol affect a person?
• Why do some people react differently to alcohol than others?
• What is a standard drink in the United States?
• Is beer or wine safer to drink than hard liquor?

Drinking levels

• What does moderate drinking mean?
• Is it safe to drink alcohol and drive?
• What does it mean to be above the legal limit for drinking?
• How do I know if it’s okay to drink?

Excessive alcohol use

• What do you mean by heavy drinking?
• What is binge drinking?
• What is the difference between alcoholism and alcohol abuse?
• What does it mean to get drunk?

Drinking problems

• How do I know if I have a drinking problem?
• What can I do if I or someone I know has a drinking problem?
• What health problems are associated with excessive alcohol use?

Special populations

• I’m young, is drinking bad for my health?
• Is it okay to drink when pregnant?

From National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)…

Too often today’s headlines bring news of yet another alcohol-related tragedy involving a young person—a case of fatal alcohol poisoning on a college campus or a late-night drinking–driving crash. People ages 18 to 25 often are in the news, but are they really at higher risk than anyone else for problems involving alcohol?

Some of the most important new data to emerge on young adult drinking were collected through a recent nationwide survey, the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC). According to these data, in 2001–2002 about 70 percent of young adults in the United States, or about 19 million people, consumed alcohol in the year preceding the survey.

It’s not only that young people are drinking but the way they drink that puts them at such high risk for alcohol-related problems. Research consistently shows that people tend to drink the heaviest in their late teens and early to mid-twenties (1,2). Young adults are especially likely to binge drink and to drink heavily¹ (3). (¹ In this study, binge drinking was defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row at least once in the past month. Drinking heavily was defined as consuming five or more drinks in a row on at least five occasions in the past month [3].) According to NESARC data, about 46 percent of young adults (12.4 million) engaged in drinking that exceeded the recommended daily limits² at least once in the past year, and 14.5 percent (3.9 million) had an average consumption that exceeded the recommended weekly limits.³ (² The recommended daily limits for moderate alcohol consumption are no more than two drinks for men or one drink for women per day [4].) (³ According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA], men may be at risk for alcohol-related problems if their alcohol consumption exceeds 14 standard drinks per week or 4 drinks per day, and women may be at risk if they have more than 7 standard drinks per week or 3 drinks per day. A standard drink is defined as one 12-ounce bottle of beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine, or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.)

Such risky drinking often leads to tragic consequences (5)—most notably alcohol-related traffic fatalities (6). Thirty-two percent of drivers ages 16–20 who died in traffic crashes in 2003 had measurable alcohol in their blood, and 51 percent of drivers ages 21–24 who died tested positive for alcohol (7). Clearly, then, young adult drinkers pose a serious public health threat, putting themselves and others at risk.

Read full article…

Additional Wesleyan Resources:

• WesWELL: Alcohol
• Alcohol & Other Drugs Prevention (on-campus network access only)

From the New York Times…

MANOREXIA. Orthorexia. Diabulimia. Binge Eating Disorder.

All are dangerous variations on the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia, and have become buzzwords that are popping up on Web sites and blogs, on television and in newspaper articles. As celebrity magazines chronicle the glamorous and the suffering, therapists and a growing number of researchers are trying to treat and understand the conditions.

The latest entry in the lexicon of food-related ills is drunkorexia, shorthand for a disturbing blend of behaviors: self-imposed starvation or bingeing and purging, combined with alcohol abuse.

Drunkorexia is not an official medical term. But it hints at a troubling phenomenon in addiction and eating disorders. Among those who are described as drunkorexics are college-age binge drinkers, typically women, who starve all day to offset the calories in the alcohol they consume. The term is also associated with serious eating disorders, particularly bulimia, which often involve behavior like bingeing on food — and alcohol — and then purging.

From the National Geographic special “Inside the Living Body”…

or view it here.  

Share your reactions and thoughts in the comments…

From the Mayo Clinic… 

Coffee’s about as helpful as a cold shower or a brisk walk in sobering you up. That is, it’s not helpful at all! Your blood alcohol level starts to rise with just one alcoholic drink. The only way to lower your blood alcohol level is to stop drinking and wait. It’ll simply take time for your body to metabolize the alcohol. Sipping coffee may help you pass the time, but it won’t help you sober up any faster.

Click here for more information on alcohol and low risk consumption from WesWELL

From the Hartford Courant…

Colleges across Connecticut have taken a number of steps to cast off the drinking culture that infuses so much of campus life.  The tactics they’ve employed include strictly enforcing existing rules, aggressively screening students for signs of risky behavior, establishing peer support programs and enlisting the help of local police, bar owners and those hovering “helicopter” parents.

“Have we solved the problem? Not yet,” said Walter Bernstein, vice president of Western Connecticut State University. “But I am convinced that the first step toward solving the problem is admitting that a problem exists.”

The scale of that problem was on full display Monday, when leaders from more than 20 colleges in Connecticut came to Wesleyan University to honor the work they have already done and remind themselves of just how much more remains.

• College Drinking Video

The statistics are startling: About half of all college students in the U.S. binge drink or abuse drugs.

One quarter of them meet the medical criteria for drug or alcohol dependency, compared with about 8.5 percent of the general population. And college women, though they lag behind their male peers in terms of alcohol consumption, are catching up fast.

Those are the findings of a 2005 study conducted by the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Joseph A. Califano Jr., founding chairman of the center and one-time chief domestic aide to President Lyndon Johnson, presented Monday’s keynote address.

“Thirty-two kids were killed [at Virginia Tech] by a crazy kid with a gun and the nation went into mourning,” Califano said. Yet every week, more than two dozen college students die because of injuries related to alcohol or drugs and scarcely anyone notices, he said.

Drug use is also increasing, according to Califano. Four percent of college students said they used marijuana daily, according to the study. That is even more troubling because today’s marijuana is far more potent that that of the 1960s and ’70s. “It’s not the right of passage parents might have thought it was,” Califano said.

The colleges and universities represented on Monday are part of the Connecticut Statewide Healthy Campus Initiative, a partnership of the state departments of mental health and addiction services and higher education, as well as the Governor’s Prevention Partnership. They range in size from tiny Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts (total enrollment: about 180 students) to the University of Connecticut.

But each has a stake in addressing risky behavior among its students. It is “part and parcel of our mission,” said Wesleyan President Michael Roth. “You cannot learn the things you need to learn as a college student if you continue on a path” of unhealthy behavior, he said.

Click here to learn more about Wesleyan’s alcohol and other drug prvention efforts (on-campus network access only).