Heavy drinking surges among one age group of Americans as other generations cut back

New research shows that U.S.alcohol use has declined for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, but drinking remains above pre-pandemic levels — with one particular group showing a sharp increase in heavy intake.A study led by the University of Southern California/Keck Medicine found that among adults ages 50 to 64, alcohol use increased by nearly 4% from 2018 to 2024, while heavy drinking increased by more than 36%.Across all age groups, alcohol use declined by nearly 2%, and heavy drinking declined by more than 8% from 2022 to 2024.

However, overall alcohol use remained above pre-pandemic levels.Among Gen Z adults, alcohol use declined by more than 5%.Millennials drank approximately 17% less from 2022 to 2024.The findings, which were published on Sept.

21 in Annals of Internal Medicine, were based on self-reported data from the National Health Interview Survey, which included 114,352 U.S.adults from 2018 to 2024.Heavy drinking was defined as five or more drinks per day or 15 or more drinks per week for men within the preceding 12 months and at least four daily drinks or eight weekly drinks for women.Men were found to have a larger alcohol decline than women (2.4% vs.

1.1%), but women had a larger reduction in heavy drinking (9%) compared to men (7.7%).“Women’s heavy drinking rose more than men’s during the pandemic and is still about 13% above where it was in 2018,” lead study author Brian P.Lee, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, told Fox News Digital.

“Women develop liver damage at lower levels of drinking than men, so that number carries more weight than it looks.”The study was funded in part by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institutes of Health.The chief limitation of the study is that people reported their own levels of drinking, which tend to run low, according to Lee.“It also can’t tell us why drinking changed, only that it did,” he told Fox News...