Washington, Apr 19 : A new study has found that cigarette smoking and misuse of alcohol are related addictions.

The study was conducted at Yale School of Medicine researchers, under principal investigator Sherry McKee.

As part of the study, following guidelines that physicians use to assess tobacco and alcohol use, researchers analysed data obtained from 42,374 adults in a national epidemiological survey on alcohol misuse and other related conditions.
Researchers found that non-daily smokers are five times more likely to have a problem with alcohol compared to people who have never smoked, while daily smokers are three times more likely to have an alcohol problem.

“This is the first study to document that individuals who are smokers, but don’t smoke every day, have the highest rates of problem drinking. Using smoking status as a ‘red flag’ for more aggressive assessment of alcohol use is a highly feasible and clinically sensible approach to screening,” McKee said.

“This means cigarette smoking status can be used as a clinical indicator for alcohol misuse, which presents an opportunity for intervention,” McKee said.

Although brief screening and brief intervention provided in primary care settings are effective, clinicians do not frequently screen for alcohol misuse. This is a matter of concern because 26 percent of the U.S. population is drinking at hazardous levels, which puts them at increased risk for alcohol-related consequences such as injuries from motor vehicle crashes, hypertension, depression, and certain cancers.

“Only an estimated 30 percent of individuals who had a primary care visit reported being screened for an alcohol or drug use problem. Physicians are much more likely to ask patients whether and how often they smoke,” she added.

The findings of the research were published in the April issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. (ANI)