Drinking Rise Seen In Women And Older Adults Of America, Unprecedented Rise Worrying Researchers

Drinking has always been the favorite pastime of a majority of the world but an excess can always cause various health problems. The United States of America is already well-known for obese people and health problems and drinking alcohol to the point of it being dangerous has risen in the US, for women, minorities and older adults. A study, published in the JAMA Psychiatry and funded by a federal agency for alcohol research, examined how the drinking patterns have changed between 2002 and 2013 and are based on surveys conducted in-person on tens of thousands of American adults.

The study found that drinking has risen substantially over the time and the problems accompanying drinking alcohol have also increased by a great percentage of women, racial minorities, older adults and the poor people. Drinking patterns had declined from the 70s through the 90s as is shown by many research studies but after the 90s, the percentage of people who drank alcohol rose nearly by half while the high-risk, addictive drinking rose by about 20 percent.

Overall drinking between 2002 and 2013 rose by about 11 percent and by 2013, nearly three-quarters of the American adults said that they had consumed alcohol within the last year. The high-risk and problem drinking increased quite dramatically. The study showed that the high-risk drinking, women consuming four or more drinks a day and men drinking five or more drinks a day, rose by about 30 percent. The high-risk drinking among women rose by about 58 percent and among older adults rose by about 65 percent.

Alcohol abuse increased by nearly 50 percent in the decade of research conducted. Among women, it was particularly high-rise, with the dependence and abuse increase reaching 84 percent. Among the African-American ethnicity, it showed an increase of nearly 93 percent. Among the older adults, the alcohol abuse increased by more than 100 percent. This increase was quite unprecedented by the researchers.

The researchers have attributed the increase to many reasons, gender gap and wealth inequality chief among them.