Old age sobers up drinkers, study says
By their 80s, many quit altogether
WASHINGTON – As the last two generations of Americans grew older, they drank less alcohol. And the younger generation of adults drank less heavily than the one before it, according to the first analysis of alcohol- consumption trends over adult life spans.
By the time they reached their 80s, more than 40 percent of men and 60 percent of women said they didn’t drink at all, according to a study in the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine.
Over time, beer drinkers generally shifted to wine, the study found, and the younger generation drank less hard liquor than the older one did. At the same time, more and more adults became moderate drinkers by federal dietary standards, which define moderate as two drinks a day for men and one a day for women.
“They’ve understood that a little alcohol is OK, but a lot is not good,” said Curtis Ellison, a co-author of the report and a professor of medicine and public health at Boston University School of Medicine.
At the same time, rates of problem drinking remained unchanged, Ellison’s team found. Nearly 13 percent of men and 4 percent of women reported problems across the study span.
“It seems they just can’t get over their problems with alcohol,” Ellison said.
Researchers relied on estimates of alcohol consumption reported every two to four years from 1948 through 2003 for the massive Framingham Heart Study. The alcohol analysis involved 8,600 of its participants, born from 1900 to 1959.
The participants’ experiences with alcohol reflect trends for most of the last century.
Women consistently drank less than men, the study found. Heavy drinking dropped with age for men but fell less markedly for women.