Tell-tale sings of binge drinking

You could be officially labelled a binge drinker if you down three pints of beer in an hour.

The image of a binge drinker as a beer-swilling lout should be scrapped, researchers warned yesterday.

It isn't just about how much alcohol you down - it is about how you down it, they said. In fact, half of all episodes of binge drinking occur among otherwise moderate drinkers.

Doctors define it as quick, excessive boozing that brings levels of alcohol in the bloodstream to more than 80 milligrams per millilitre of blood. For the average male, this is the same as knocking back just under five pints in two hours, or just under four for the average female.

It might explain why people in Mediterranean countries who drink wine copiously over longer periods, and often with food, fare better in terms of coronary heart disease and other health problems.

'We have not paid enough attention to binge drinking,' Jurgen Rehm, of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in Toronto, told New Scientist.

'There's been this dogma that it's overall volume of alcohol that is important. This is where science has failed.'