Posted on 12/12/2011 8:18:32 AM PST by Enosh
MONDAY, Dec. 12 (HealthDay News) — Drinking too much alcohol can lead to unsafe sex, a new study confirms.
Unsafe sex is the most common cause of HIV infection and finding ways to prevent unsafe sex is a major goal of public health efforts to prevent HIV/AIDS.
Alcohol use has long been associated with HIV incidence. However, it hasn’t been clear whether unsafe sex associated with alcohol use actually led to HIV infection, or whether certain personality traits, such as sensation-seeking or risky behavior, led to both alcohol use and unsafe sex.
In this study, researchers led by Jurgen Rehm, director of social and epidemiological research at theCentre for Addiction and Mental Health in Ontario, Canada, conducted 12 experiments that tested this cause-and-effect relationship. They concluded that alcohol affects decision-making and that this effect increases with the amount of alcohol consumed.
The more alcohol the participants drank, the more willing they were to engage in unsafe sex, the study authors said. For each 0.1 milligrams per milliliter increase in blood alcohol level, there was a 5 percent increase in a participant’s likelihood of having unsafe sex.
The study is published in the January issue of the journal Addiction.
“Drinking has a causal effect on the likelihood to engage in unsafe sex, and thus should be included as a major factor in preventive efforts for HIV,” Rehm commented in a journal news release. “This result also helps explain why people at risk often show this behavior despite better knowledge: Alcohol is influencing their decision processes.”
More information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more about practicing safer sex atwomenshealth.gov.
This is news ??
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Duh!
Another way of saying it is "the girls always look better at closing time."
Kinda like saying the sunrise increases the chance of daylight...
Funny how its focused on HIV only.
Y’ think?
Candy is dandy...
DUH! How many of our taxpayer dollars were wasted to discover this infomration?
I just wish I could get re-imbursed for my 'study' expenses. 3 houses for women that eventually hated me, putting countless lawyer's kids through college, etc... ;)
/johnny
... trouble ... You name it.
Reminds me of a line one of my Facebook peeps posted recently. “The commercial says every kiss begins with Kay, but I’m willing to bet a good number of kisses begin with a couple of bottles of Miller Lite”.
HEY!!!
Where’s MY grant money???!!!
I did a 40 year study and didn’t get a nickle!!!!
Wonder how many of my tax dollars it took to find this out?
I'm sure a great many FReeper gents would have gladly contributed data points for free.
Who'd 'a' thunk it?
it leads to unsafe everything else, I don’t know why sex would be any different.
I’ve got a buddy who’s fond of saying that instead of getting married again, he’s just going to find a woman he doesn’t like and buy her a house. Figures that it will be cheaper in the long run.
I’m so glad we have government studies to spend millions discovering an obvious fact that every 15 year old boy instinctively knows.
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