Although society as a whole is drinking less and approaching alcohol consumption with more moderation, a study of the last 50 years of drinking patterns in the United States shows that alcohol use disorders have not declined at all.According to the study, beer drinking has declined significantly, wine drinking has increased and the consumption of hard liquor has remained fairly constant.
Yuqing Zhang of the Boston University School of Medicine studied 8,000 records of the Framingham Heart Study, the longest population-based study of American adults ever conducted, to measure alcohol consumption over 50 years.
This study shows that, on the whole, the American population is moving in a healthier direction, according to Zhang. However, despite more favorable patterns of drinking, risk of alcohol dependence did not show a decrease over the 50-year period.
Despite Less Drinking, Alcoholism Constant
The number of people who developed alcohol-related disorders, such as alcoholic cardiomyopathy or alcoholic cirrhosis remained nearly constant across all age groups, Zhang said.
"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," Zhang said. "While these data suggest the development of more favorable patterns of alcohol consumption over the latter part of the 20th century, that also show that, at the same time, the cumulative incidence of alcohol use disorders has not shown a decrease, and continuing efforts at preventing them are warranted."
Source: Zhang, Y., et al, "Secular Trends in Alcohol Consumption over 50 Years: The Framingham Study." The American Journal of Medicine, August 2008.
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