Quitters: U.S. alcohol consumption declining

Overall alcohol use—particularly consumption of beer—is declining in the US, according to a new study published in the August 2008 issue of The American Journal of Medicine. Researchers examined 50 years of data and found several changes in alcohol intake but no change in alcohol use disorders. Americans are drinking significantly less beer and more wine, while hard liquor use has remained fairly constant. More people now report that they are non-drinkers. People born later in the 20th century drink more moderately than older people. As we age, our individual alcohol consumption goes down.
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Writing in the article, Yuqing Zhang, DSc, Boston University School of Medicine, and his co-investigators state, “The findings in this study may be considered encouraging in many ways: the average amount of alcohol has decreased in more recently born cohorts, the percentage of the population exhibiting ‘moderate’ alcohol intake has been increasing steadily, and the percentage reporting ‘heavy’ drinking has decreased over time…

Tags: alchoholism treatment

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 6:40 pm and is filed under addiction treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.