Harvard researchers have reported that alcohol abuse among teen girls and young women may increase the likelihood of developing benign breast lumps later in life.

Denise Mann of WebMD Health News reported on the study in an April 12 article:

Girls were aged 9 to 15 when the Growing Up Today Study began. They answered questionnaires from 1996 to 2001, and then again in 2003, 2005, and 2007. ...

Those participants who drank alcohol six to seven days per week were more than five times as likely to develop benign breast disease as their counterparts who abstained.

The teens and adolescent women who drank three to five days per week had three times the risk of developing benign breast disease as their counterparts who did not drink alcohol, the study showed.

Exactly how alcohol use during the teen years raises risk for benign breast disease is not fully understood, but the researchers speculate that alcohol use may increase levels of the female sex hormone estrogen, which may foster the development of benign lumps, bumps, and cysts in the breasts.

Labels: women, girls, alcohol_abuse, health_problems

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Female binge drinkers are more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections and to participate in risky sexual behaviors that are women who don't drink, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins University.

Researchers interviewed 671 people over a 13-month period as they were being treated for sexually transmitted diseases. Women who binge drink were five times more likely to have gonorrhea, and three times more likely to participate in anal sex and to have several partners compared to females who do not drink.

Binge drinking is defined as having five or more alcoholic drinks in one session.

"Binge drinking results in a decreased ability to make clear decisions and can enable individuals to engage in behaviors that they would not if sober," according to Dr. Geetanjali Chander, one of the authors of the study.

The authors noted that today's women are drinking more than previous generations, and that when young women drink, they are at greater risk for sexual assault.

This study appears in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Labels: women, risky_behaviors, binge_drinking

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The University of Arizona has been awarded a $1.2 million federal grant to study substance abuse treatment for young women.

Dr. Sally Stevens, executive director of the Southwest Institute for Research on Women, said the Institute will study and test several different models for treatment and recovery.

"It's a different approach for drug treatment research," she said. "This is important. The adolescent research is not that old and we have not come that far along to be looking at gender-specific research for girls."

Bridget Ruiz, principal investigator for the grant, said, "It's really about creating a paradigm shift. Substance abuse treatment has historically been an acute episode of treatment where you come in for 90 days, get the curriculum and treatment, and are sent on your way. We've found that it really takes one year at least for young people, moving and out of recovery, before they come to some stability."

Over 2.1 million teenagers needed treatment for alcohol or drug abuse in 2006, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health - but only 181,000 received treatment at a specialty facility.

Learn about Four Circle's Women-Only Recovery Program

Labels: women, treatment, genders

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