"Among American Indians, five of the top 10 causes of death are strongly associated with alcohol use: accidents, alcoholism, suicides, homicides, and cirrhosis," said Jay Shore, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver, the Health Sciences Center's American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, and corresponding author for the study. "These causes of death occur at rates at least three to four times the national average."
Shore added that although previous studies conducted among American Indians have described alcohol use as one of several risk factors associated with specific health problems – such as cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, neurological, or metabolic conditions – none have focused on the association with formally defined alcohol abuse or dependence.
"Furthermore," he said, "the majority of these studies drew their sample from a patient population rather than a community sample. Ours is the first study to directly examine the relationship of alcohol abuse and dependence with medical conditions in a large population-based American Indian sample."
Researchers analyzed data that had been previously collected from members of two culturally distinct American Indian tribes – the Southwest (n=1446) and the Northern Plains (n=1638) – living on or near their reservations. (Tribal names are not disclosed in order to protect community confidentiality.) Study authors used logistic regression to examine associations between self-reported alcohol abuse/dependence and 19 medical conditions.
"Medical conditions that had significant relationships with alcohol abuse/dependence were sprains and strains, hearing and vision problems, kidney and bladder problems, head injuries, pneumonia/tuberculosis, dental problems, and liver problems/pancreatitis," said Shore. "The total count of medical conditions was also significantly related to alcohol abuse/dependence, with a higher count being associated with the outcome."
Shore said that future research needs to better quantify the relationship of the degree of alcohol use with medical conditions, use physician-diagnosed or more objective measures of medical conditions, conduct prospective studies, and determine if and why certain populations are at greater risk for alcohol-related medical problems.
Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (ACER) is the official journal of the Research Society on Alcoholism and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism. Co-authors of the ACER paper, "Comorbidity of Alcohol Abuse and Dependence with Medical Conditions in Two American Indian Reservation Communities," were: Janette Beals and Heather Orton of the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; Dedra Buchwald of the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington; and the AI-SUPERPFP Team. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.