ABOUT 100,000 young NSW men drank themselves into stupors over the festive break, many hitting the bottle so hard they risked a heart attack.

The phenomenon has so alarmed medical experts they have coined a new expression for the cardio-vascular risks associated with heavy binge drinking: "holiday heart".

Even healthy young people are in danger of developing heart problems due to excessive alcohol and New Year's Day and Christmas are considered the highest risk days for heart attack.

"Holiday heart is well known to cardiologists as an acute alcohol-related heart injury. It happens when the heart becomes overstimulated," the State Government's top alcohol and drug adviser Dr Bob Batey said.

"People who are on a break and just drink a hell of a lot are at risk - the acute toxic effect of alcohol causes a whole lot of extra beats which they experience as a thumping.

"If people do it often enough they can end up with permanent heart injury from too much alcohol."

Dr Batey said anyone is at risk and young excess drinkers can have the cardiac effect, but people over 40 should be especially wary.
 

Australian alcohol guidelines put binge drinking at 11 or more standard drinks in one day for men and seven or more for women.

They recommend men drink no more than four drinks at one time and women have at the most two glasses of alcohol.

A NSW Health spokeswomen said the latest NSW Government statistics show 99,500 young men in the state drink to excess in the holidays and about 520,000 people across the state regularly drink themselves into oblivion.

Health Minister Reba Meagher said binge drinking had dropped since 2003 when 33.8 per cent of young men and 27.1 per cent of young women drank to excess.

"But it is of concern to me that so many young people still over-indulge as a matter of course," she said yesterday.

Dr Batey predicted the numbers would drop further - but only because of rising drug use.

"People are getting their highs from other things," he said. "There has been a drop in the percentage of young adults drinking at really risky levels."