Women are dying for a drink

Deaths from alcohol abuse among women have trebled in only seven years, it is revealed today.

Soaring rates of fatal liver disease paint an alarming picture of Britons literally drinking themselves to death, with more and more women hitting the bottle.

Doctors have always seen more cases of cirrhosis of the liver among men. But women are catching up, partly because of the 'ladette' culture in which girls vie with young men to consume huge quantities of alcohol.

Research published in the British Medical Journal shows a near 300 per cent increase in cirrhosis victims of both sexes between 1993 and 2000.

The findings are shocking because they demonstrate how, over the course of the last decade, women have kept pace with the rise in the number of Liver disease victims are also getting younger, with some dying in their 40s after a lifetime of binge drinking.

Doctors have also seen cirrhosis cases among men and women in their 20s and 30s, rather than their 40s and 50s.

Some 4,000 Britons die of alcohol related liver disease every year, 1,600 of them women.

The study involved 837,000 men and women in the West Midlands. But experts say it reflects trends nationwide.

Overall, deaths from liver disease rose from six per 100,000 people in 1993 to 13 per 100,000 in 2000. The increase was almost exclusively due to a jump in deaths from alcoholic liver disease, up almost threefold from 2.8 per 100,000 to 8 per 100,000.

Consultant gastroenterologist Dr Neil Fisher, who conducted the research, said: 'A threefold increase in deaths from liver disease due to alcohol in less than a decade is frankly staggering.'

He added: 'We carried out the research because we were seeing a growing number of people with the condition. The situation is worrying and shows no sign of abating.'

'Safe' limits for alcohol consumption defined by the Department of Health are 21 units a week for women and 28 for men. A unit is a half pint of beer, a glass of wine or a pub measure of spirits.

Dr Fisher said, however, that patients had developed liver disease after regularly consuming five units a day - little more than two pints or several glasses of wine.

Women have a much greater risk of falling victim, because their size means the effects of alcohol are stronger.

Their hormones also make it harder to process alcohol, leaving the liver more vulnerable to damage.

Alcohol abuse has also been linked to a higher risk of breast cancer while women are more likely than men to suffer brain damage after binge drinking.

Drink abuse expert Robin Touquet, from St Mary's Hospital in West London, said: 'Binge drinking is a major problem which this country has yet to get to grips with.'

Tony Blair has ordered the Cabinet Office strategy unit to investigate alcohol abuse following growing evidence that binge drinking is on the rise.

But his Government has still to publish an alcohol strategy, which would put drink dangers on a similar footing to drug abuse.