According to a report released on Thursday in the British Medical Journal , documenting cases of  women who consume alcohol,  the risks of drinking are not limited to hangover headaches but may also lead to bladder rupture.

The condition is only very rarely associated with binge drinking, and even then British doctors had only seen it in men prior to this study.

Fortunately, in all of these cases, the women survived. But the very existence of these cases underscores a growing problem, noted lead study author Dr. Mohantha Dooldeniya and colleagues at the United Kingdom's Castlehill Hospital.

The findings have special relevance in the United Kingdom, where recent reports have suggested that binge drinking among young women is on the rise.

According to the researchers, alcohol misuse costs the U.K.'s National Health Service up to £3 billion (about $6 billion) every year. They add that alcohol dependence, poisoning and other alcohol-related problems lead to more than 28,000 hospital admissions and 22,000 premature deaths each year.

Still, problem drinking is not unique to Europe. According to a 1998 study by the National Institutes of Health, the estimated economic cost of alcohol abuse in the United States was $148 billion per year.

And for women, many of whom have caught up to their male counterparts in terms of alcohol consumption, bingeing may carry special risks.

In 2002 researchers at the Alcohol Research Program at Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University found that chronic alcohol consumption may disrupt female reproductive function and bone health.