Americans Low On Alcohol Consumption Says A New Study

According to a study published in the August edition of The American Journal of Medicine, Americans are drinking less alcohol, particularly beer. The researchers took into account 50 years of data and found many changes in alcohol intake but not so in case of alcohol-related disorders and illnesses.

Following were the main findings of the study:
• Americans are drinking significantly less beer, are more into wine, while hard liquor consumption has remained fairly constant.
• The number of people, who call themselves non-drinkers, has gone up.
• People born in the late 20th century drink in moderation as compared to the people born in the early part of the century.
• Alcohol consumption decreases as people grow older.

Lead investigator Yuqing Zhang from Boston University School of Medicine, and his team of researchers wrote in their study: “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.”

For their study, researchers went through 8000 records of the Framingham Heart Study (the longest population-based study of American adults), to measure alcohol consumption over a period of 50 years. For the Framingham study, the subjects recruited were all born between 1900 and 1959. They were then interviewed every four years beginning from 1948 right up to 2003.

Researchers came to the conclusion that Americans were moving in the right direction where alcohol is concerned. Even as the use of alcohol declines, the proportion of people suffering from alcohol-related disorders like alcoholic cardiomyopathy or alcoholic cirrhosis remained fairly constant across all age groups.

This calls for continuing efforts at preventing alcohol-related illnesses, Zhang and his fellow researchers said.