|
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- According to the Centers for Disease Control, 75 percent of alcohol consumed in the United States is in the form of binge drinking -- and that staggering figure is contributing to unsafe sex and STDs among women, according to a new study.
Results of the study show binge drinking, or drinking five or more alcoholic beverages at a time, puts women at a substantially greater risk for engaging in unsafe sexual practices and contracting gonorrhea.
Researchers found women binge drinkers are three times more likely to have anal sex, twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners and five times more likely to have gonorrhea as women who don’t drink alcohol.
“Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease which reflects unsafe sexual practices,” Geetanjali Chander, lead author and assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was quoted as saying. “This association between binge drinking and high-risk sexual behaviors is especially important as risky behaviors are associated with HIV acquisition and transmission.”
SOURCE: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 2008; published online September 4, 2008
|
