Alcohol dependence and very high risk level of alcohol consumption: a life-threatening and debilitating disease : Alcohol dependence and very high risk level of alcohol consumption

Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for the burden of disease, and Alcohol Dependence (AD) is the most important disorder attributable to this behavior. The objective of this study was to quantify mortality associated with AD and the potential impact of treatment. For the EU countries, for the age group 15-64 years, mortality attributable to alcohol consumption in general, to heavy drinking, and to AD were estimated based on the latest data on exposure and mortality. Potential effects of AD treatment were modeled based on Cochrane and other systematic reviews of the effectiveness of the best known and most effective interventions. In the EU 88.9% of men and 82.1% of women aged 15-64 years were current drinkers; and 15.3% of men and 3.4% of women in this age group were heavy drinkers. AD affected 5.4% of men and 1.5% of women. The net burden caused by alcohol consumption was 1 in 7 deaths in men and 1 in 13 deaths in women. The majority of this burden was due to heavy drinking (77%), and 71% of this burden was due to AD. Increasing treatment coverage for the most effective treatments to 40% of all people with AD was estimated to reduce alcohol-attributable mortality by 13% for men and 9% for women (annually 10,000 male and 1700 female deaths avoided). Increasing treatment rates for AD was identified as an important issue for future public health strategies to reduce alcohol-attributable harm and to complement the current focus of alcohol policy. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

Background The goals of our study are to determine the most appropriate model for alcohol consumption as an exposure for burden of disease, to analyze the effect of the chosen alcohol consumption distribution on the estimation of the alcohol Population- Attributable Fractions (PAFs), and to characterize the chosen alcohol consumption distribution by exploring if there is a global relationship within the distribution. Methods To identify the best model, the Log-Normal, Gamma, and Weibull prevalence distributions were examined using data from 41 surveys from Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study (GENACIS) and from the European Comparative Alcohol Study. To assess the effect of these distributions on the estimated alcohol PAFs, we calculated the alcohol PAF for diabetes, breast cancer, and pancreatitis using the three above-named distributions and using the more traditional approach based on categories. The relationship between the mean and the standard deviation from the Gamma distribution was estimated using data from 851 datasets for 66 countries from GENACIS and from the STEPwise approach to Surveillance from the World Health Organization. Results The Log-Normal distribution provided a poor fit for the survey data, with Gamma and Weibull distributions providing better fits. Additionally, our analyses showed that there were no marked differences for the alcohol PAF estimates based on the Gamma or Weibull distributions compared to PAFs based on categorical alcohol consumption estimates. The standard deviation of the alcohol distribution was highly dependent on the mean, with a unit increase in alcohol consumption associated with a unit increase in the mean of 1.258 (95% CI: 1.223 to 1.293) (R2 = 0.9207) for women and 1.171 (95% CI: 1.144 to 1.197) (R2 = 0. 9474) for men. Conclusions Although the Gamma distribution and the Weibull distribution provided similar results, the Gamma distribution is recommended to model alcohol consumption from population surveys due to its fit, flexibility, and the ease with which it can be modified. The results showed that a large degree of variance of the standard deviation of the alcohol consumption Gamma distribution was explained by the mean alcohol consumption, allowing for alcohol consumption to be modeled through a Gamma distribution using only average consumption.

Alcohol use disorders (AUDs), and alcohol dependence (AD) in particular, are prevalent and associated with a large burden of disability and mortality. The aim of this study was to estimate prevalence of AD in the European Union (EU), Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland for the year 2010, and to investigate potential influencing factors. The 1-year prevalence of AD in the EU was estimated at 3.4% among people 18-64 years of age in Europe (women 1.7%, men 5.2%), resulting in close to 11 million affected people. Taking into account all people of all ages, AD, abuse and harmful use resulted in an estimate of 23 million affected people. Prevalence of AD varied widely between European countries, and was significantly impacted by drinking cultures and social norms. Correlations with level of drinking and other drinking variables and with major known outcomes of heavy drinking, such as liver cirrhosis or injury, were moderate. These results suggest a need to rethink the definition of AUDs.