Canadian Statistics Show A Spike In Alcohol-Related Deaths In Women
New statistics from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) show that there is an increase in Canadian women drinking alcohol to the point where they’re hospitalized or even they die from it.
Between 2001 and 2015, the rate of alcohol-related deaths for women has increased by 26%. During the same period, the rate for men only increased by almost 5%.
The deaths related to alcohol consumption involved conditions like chronic alcohol use disorder, withdrawal delirium, cirrhosis, acute pancreatitis or extreme intoxication.
Tim Stockwell is the director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and said that:
“Women are drinking more like men.”
Some of the factors would be the income of women getting higher, their independence too and the alcohol price getting lower. Even if women consume less alcohol, they’re more affected by it. Tim Stockwell explains that women’s liver is more prone to be damaged by a dose of alcohol.
The department head for emergency medicine in the Calgary zone, Dr. Eddy Lang said that after parties, young adults get into trouble:
“They’re coming in comatose.”
But the majority of the alcohol-related patients are the ones that suffer from alcohol withdrawal. They get the shakes, vomit, and have hallucinations. Other patients came drunk at the hospital after bar fights or car accidents, says Dr. Eddy Lang:
“I’m sad to say it, but I’ve had shifts at the hospital here in Calgary where I look over my patient list at the end of the shift and if it wasn’t for alcohol, I’d have no patients.”
A Big Risk Factor For Cancer
Jurgen Rehm is the senior director of the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research. He also knows that we all need to address this problem and “take alcohol more seriously.” He also added that:
“We have to actually be clear that alcohol is the second-biggest risk factor for cancer. It is one of the top-five risk factors for premature mortality, for life expectancy, for burden of disease and hospitalizations and we should do something.”
Rehm believes that, if alcohol would be less-advertised, more expensive and less available, it could cut down the risk of death related to alcohol intake, but “our political system doesn’t want to do that.”
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.
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