London: The growing drinking culture is leading to the number of women dying from alcohol abuse.

Drink-related deaths among women aged between 35 and 54 have soared to almost twice the level they were in the early 1990s, according to new research.

Around 14 women per 100,000 in this age group now die from alcohol-induced conditions, such as liver failure according to figures from the Office of National Statistics.

Alcohol is to blame for the deaths of more than 8,000 men and women a year, compared with just over 4,000 in 1991.

Thirty years ago, the death rate for men and women of any age from alcohol abuse stood as just two per 100,000, the lowest in Europe.

The drinking culture also appears to have children in its grip.

A recent Government- commissioned study found that one in five 15-year-olds drinks the equivalent of almost a bottle of wine a week. In some parts of the country, one in eight 12-year-olds is drinking as much. Binge drinking plays a part in more than 4,300 teenage pregnancies and 5.5million lost days of schooling each year.

The nation’s addiction to alcohol takes an average of seven months off the life of every man and woman and is responsible for more than half a million hospital admissions a year, the report by the Centre of Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University found.

Drunkenness is to also blame for more than half a million crimes each year, from violent brawls to robberies and sexual assaults. More than a million men down more than 50 units of alcohol a week.

Previous studies have shown that every day, 15 boys and girls under 16 drink themselves into hospital accident and emergency departments.

Doctors have said that 12-year-olds are being diagnosed as alcoholics and that cirrhosis of the liver – an alcohol-induced problem – is being found in teenagers.