HHS HealthBeat (June 29, 2012)

Binge drinking and burns

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Nicholas Garlow with HHS HealthBeat.

Binge drink, and you can expect big trouble – a study says getting burned can be one of those troubles. Researchers at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago looked at hospital admissions for burns. Nearly 50 percent of adult burn patients they observed had been binge drinking before being injured.

Elizabeth Kovacs is director of the Alcohol Research Program at Loyola University.

The lesson here is, don’t binge drink.

“Burn injury is just an additional one of those factors that could occur after binge drinking.”

Burn patients who drank beforehand stayed in the hospital longer, and also had more infections later on.

The study, presented at the 44^th annual meeting of the American Burn Association in Seattle was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at healthfinder.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Nicholas Garlow.

Last revised: June 29, 2012