Researchers reckon that both boys and girls born in 2010 in the UK can expect to live for 81 years whereas, currently, there is a five-year difference in life expectancy between the sexes. Heavy drinking in young women has more than tripled over the past 17 years, and 10 per cent of women between the ages of 16 and 24 are drinking above the recommended weekly safety limit (Office of Health Economics. Compendium of Health Statistics. Abingdon: Radcliffe Publishing, 2005).