Obesity seems to increase the risk of advanced liver disease in heavy drinkers.
Many heavy drinkers fail to quit cold turkey but do much better when they taper gradually, or even learn to moderate their drinking.
One fifth of these (2.1 million) are heavy drinkers who have five or more drinks on a minimum of five different occasions.
Nearly 7.2 million (19.2%) were binge drinkers and 2.3 million (6.1%) were heavy drinkers.
Among the current alcohol users, 28.3 percent had five or more drinks on at least one occasion, suggesting that a sizeable proportion of the students are periodic heavy drinkers.
