Comparison between the WHO and NIAAA criteria for binge drinking on drinking features and alcohol-related aftermaths: Results from a cross-sectional study among eight emergency wards in France.

BACKGROUND: Binge drinking (BD) consists of heavy episodic alcohol use. Whereas the World Health Organization (WHO) defines BD as 60g of alcohol or more per occasion, the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) conceives BD as drinking 70g (men) or 56g (women) in less than two hours. We compared the subjects delineated by each definition. METHODS: Eight-center cross-sectional study among 11,695 subjects hospitalized in emergency wards. Participants completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test - Consumption (AUDIT-C), CAGE and Rapid Alcohol Problem Screen 4 (RAPS4-QF) questionnaires. The WHO criteria were investigated using the RAPS4-QF. Independent questions assessed the NIAAA criteria. The main medical admission motive was noted. The characteristics of subjects meeting respectively: 1) the exclusive WHO criteria (BD1); 2) the NIAAA criteria (BD2); and 3) no BD criteria (noBD) were compared using multinomial regression analyses. Binary age- and gender-adjusted regression analyses directly compared BD1 and BD2. Subjects with at least four drinking occasions per week were excluded from the analyses, to withdrawn regular heavy drinking. RESULTS: Compared to BD1, BD2 subjects were more frequently males (OR=1.67 [1.39-2.0]), single (aOR=1.64 [1.36-1.98]) and unemployed (aOR=1.57 [1.27-1.90]). BD2 reported significantly more drinks per occasion, and higher heavy drinking frequencies. Previous alcohol-related remarks from family (aOR=3.00 [2.53-3.56]), ever drinking on waking-up (aOR=2.05 [1.37-2.72]), and admission for psychiatric motive (aOR=2.27 [1.68-3.07]) were more frequent among BD2 subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to WHO criteria, NIAAA criteria for BD delineate subjects with more concerning drinking patterns and alcohol aftermaths.

GC-MS determined cotinine in an epidemiological study on smoking status at delivery.

The objective of this study was to measure the plasma cotinine levels in pregnant women and their newborns using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method in an epidemiological-delivered population with a wide range of tobacco intakes. Nearly 1000 pregnant women from regional maternity wards (n=1007) were selected for the study. Each patient kept a tobacco diary and underwent a blood test to assess cotinine levels and at the same time that the newborns' cordonal plasma was taken. These values were then cross-checked. Cotinine was estimated using a selected-ion monitoring mode with a 1.5 ng/ml quantification limit. The cotinine levels in mothers and newborns were highly correlated, whatever the mother's smoking status, with a calculated cut-off for cotinine levels in active smokers of 21.5 ng/ml. Finally, the cotinine determined through this GC-MS method offered a sensitive and accurate measure of tobacco exposition of the pregnant women and their babies.