Teenage Binge Drinking

Binge drinking is an alarming trend that has parents, school officials and health experts concerned. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) found that one quarter of high school students participated in binge drinking on at least one day in the past 30 days. Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks of alcohol in a row within a couple of hours. Teens seem to believe that binge drinking is normal, expected and harmless. In fact, between the beginning and conclusion of high school, the chances of a student becoming a binge drinker more than doubles. the consequences of binge drinking can include a higher chance for alcohol addiction, dangerous driving decisions, unprotected sex, as well as organ damage to the liver and kidneys. Alcohol poisoning is also an increasing occurrence, sending more teens to the emergency room nationwide than in previous years.

The trend of binge drinking continues into the college years. In a recent study, the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study found that nearly half of all college students were binge drinkers and 16% were frequent binge drinkers. A frequent binge drinker is defined as a person who binged three or more times in the past two weeks. In addition, binge drinking seems to be more prevalent in white teens in the middle to upper social classes than in other ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

Binge drinking has been found to have more harmful effects on girls than on boys. A study from the University of California, San Diego and Stanford University found that teen girls who binge drink experienced negative effects on their brains, including less activity in brain regions linked to memory when compared to non-drinking teenagers. The authors of the study concluded that women may be more vulnerable to neurotoxic effects of heavy alcohol abuse during adolescence, while men may be more resilient to the deleterious effects of binge drinking. These negative effects could linger and perhaps even cause permanent harm to brain functioning for years to come.

In a new research study, Professor Susan Tapert of the University of California, San Diego used an imaging machine called an MRI to scan the brains of teens who binge drink—defined as drinking four or five (or more) drinks in a period of a few hours. Dr. Tapert found that the “white matter” in their brains—the part that transmits signals, like a television cable or a computer USB cord—was abnormal when compared with the white matter of teens who don’t binge drink. Transmitting signals is a large part of the brain’s function, so affecting the white matter in this way could also affect thinking, learning and memory.