Health & Medicine
CDC Discovers 1 in 10 Deaths Linked to Drinking: The Dangers of Excessive Alcohol
Catherine Griffin
First Posted: Jun 30, 2014 07:55 AM EDT
How dangerous is it to drink alcohol? It can be deadly, according to a new study. Scientists have found that excessive alcohol use accounts for one in 10 deaths among working-age adults between the ages of 20 to 64 in the United States.
Excessive drinking includes binge drinking (four drinks or more for women and five or more for men on occasion), heavy drinking (eight drinks or more per week for women and fifteen or more for men), and any alcohol use by pregnant women or those under the minimum legal drinking age of 21. In fact, excessive drinking cost the U.S. about $224 billion in 2006.
In order to find out how many deaths could be attributed to excessive drinking, the researchers analyzed data from the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) applications for 2006 to 2010. ARDI gives national and state-specific estimates of alcohol-attributable deaths and years of potential life lose.
So what did they find? It turns out that excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths in the years studied. In addition, it shortened the lives of those who died by about 30 years. Nearly 70 percent of these deaths involved working-age adults, and about 70 percent of the deaths involved males. The highest death rate due to drinking was in New Mexico while the lowest was in New Jersey.
"It's shocking to see the public health impact of excessive drinking on working-age adults," said Robert Brewer, one of the researchers, in a news release. "CDC is working with partners to support the implementation of strategies for preventing excessive alcohol use that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, which can help reduce the health and social cost of this dangerous risk behavior."
The findings reveal the importance of implementing public health approaches in order to reduce the amount of alcohol-related deaths. Because excessive drinking is associated with such a high mortality rate, it's crucial to stress the importance of safe drinking habits, especially when it comes to working adults.
The findings are published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
See Now:
NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone
TagsAlcohol, Binge Drinking ©2024 ScienceWorldReport.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The window to the world of science news.
More on SCIENCEwr
First Posted: Jun 30, 2014 07:55 AM EDT
How dangerous is it to drink alcohol? It can be deadly, according to a new study. Scientists have found that excessive alcohol use accounts for one in 10 deaths among working-age adults between the ages of 20 to 64 in the United States.
Excessive drinking includes binge drinking (four drinks or more for women and five or more for men on occasion), heavy drinking (eight drinks or more per week for women and fifteen or more for men), and any alcohol use by pregnant women or those under the minimum legal drinking age of 21. In fact, excessive drinking cost the U.S. about $224 billion in 2006.
In order to find out how many deaths could be attributed to excessive drinking, the researchers analyzed data from the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) applications for 2006 to 2010. ARDI gives national and state-specific estimates of alcohol-attributable deaths and years of potential life lose.
So what did they find? It turns out that excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths in the years studied. In addition, it shortened the lives of those who died by about 30 years. Nearly 70 percent of these deaths involved working-age adults, and about 70 percent of the deaths involved males. The highest death rate due to drinking was in New Mexico while the lowest was in New Jersey.
"It's shocking to see the public health impact of excessive drinking on working-age adults," said Robert Brewer, one of the researchers, in a news release. "CDC is working with partners to support the implementation of strategies for preventing excessive alcohol use that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, which can help reduce the health and social cost of this dangerous risk behavior."
The findings reveal the importance of implementing public health approaches in order to reduce the amount of alcohol-related deaths. Because excessive drinking is associated with such a high mortality rate, it's crucial to stress the importance of safe drinking habits, especially when it comes to working adults.
The findings are published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone