It's probably obvious that people addicted to alcohol and drugs are more likely than the general population to end up in intensive care units due to traumas like car crashes.

But a Utah study shows they also are at a higher risk of being admitted to the ICU for medical reasons, such as gastrointestinal disease.

It's "just another reason to say, 'Boy, you shouldn't drink and do drugs in excess,' " said Mary Suchyta, a pulmonary doctor at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray and lead author of the study, published today in the journal Intensive Care Medicine.

In a review of ICU admissions at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, she and researchers from IMC and Brigham Young University found that 19 percent of the patients during a year had been previously diagnosed with alcohol or drug dependence. That's twice the rate of substance abuse than Utah's general population.

"This isn't people having a couple drinks a night at dinner or binge drinking for three days," Suchyta explained.

The substance-abuse patients were more often male and younger (an average of 45 years old compared to 51) than the general ICU population. They also came more often to the ICU for medical care. Researchers don't know why, but Suchyta likens the dependence to other chronic conditions like diabetes or lung disease, which puts patients at higher risk for needing acute medical care. "We know alcohol impairs immunity, perhaps drug abuse does [too]," she

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said.

Hospitals don't routinely screen medical ICU patients for substance abuse, so dependence can go unrecognized, the researchers said. But doctors need to know because dependence could affect patients' care in the ICU and afterward in rehab.

"Is there some medical treatment that should be different in those patients? It may be that we would use different drugs if we knew the patient was going to have delirium tremens [from alcohol withdrawal]," said co-author Ramona Hopkins, chairwoman of BYU's psychology department and an IMC researcher.

hmay@sltrib.com