Discounted wine to cause surge in liver disease among women

A leading liver expert Dr Orla Crosbie has called for a ban on supermarket meal deals that include heavily discounted wine, as medics prepare for a surge in the number of women suffering alcohol- related diseases.

‘dine in for two’ deals offered by major supermarket chains for as little as €14, bottle of wine included, are helping fuel a culture of regular weekday drinking that is leading to an epidemic of liver disease in women.

Dr Orla Crosbie also wants alcohol to be sold separately from groceries in supermarkets in the hope that having to queue for a checkout a second time would deter women from impulse buying.

And she says girls as young as 13 and 14 should be provided with specific alcohol-related education at the time they receive their HPV cervical cancer vaccine in secondary school.

Her calls come in advance of a conference that will hear of growing concerns among health professionals and other campaigners about the increasing toll alcohol is taking on Irish women.

“The bottom line is that more females are drinking than they used to, and they’re drinking more,” Dr Crosbie said. “In Ireland 77% of females drink compared to an average of 68% in other European countries.”

“The other important thing is the increase in the binge drinking culture. Particularly when you look at 18 to 29-year-olds, as many females binge-drink as males which is a complete change in drinking patterns.

Dr Crosbie, a consultant gastroenterologist at Cork University Hospital, said that when she started work with liver cases 20 years ago, it was rare to see a female patient. Now 36% of her patients with alcohol-related cirrhosis (advanced liver damage) are women.

“I did a clinic yesterday with 15 patients, men and women, with general liver problems — not all alcohol-related — but four of those 15 were women, three in their 40s and one in her 50s, with established significant liver disease caused by alcohol. That just didn’t happen 15-20 years ago.
“My concern going into the future would be that we’re going to see more females with alcoholic liver disease than males.”

Her concern mirrors that of other doctors who appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee in recent weeks to discuss planned new laws for restricting the sale and marketing of alcohol. They said deaths from cirrhosis had doubled in 20 years but the biggest increase was among women.
Women are physically less able to process alcohol than men and their guideline maximum weekly alcohol intake is two-thirds that of men — 14 units compared to 21 — but doctors fear this is being ignored.

The risks of regular excess drinking for women include not just potentially fatal cirrhosis, but an increased likelihood of jaundice, liver tumours, internal bleeding, impaired memory, neurological problems, infertility, miscarriage, foetal alcohol syndrome, and a higher chance of breast cancer.
While alcohol consumption has declined overall in recent years, women buck the trend and there was a 7% increase in wine sales last year which is seen to reflect a mainly female market.

Suzanne Costello of the charity Alcohol Action Ireland, which hosts next Tuesday’s international conference, ‘Girls, Women and Alcohol’ said: “Alcohol is not an equal opportunities product. The impact on women is very different and it needs to be addressed.”

Health Minister Leo Varadkar is before the health committee next Thursday to give a progress report on the new laws which face a race against the clock to be passed before the general election.

Source: www.irishexaminer.com
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