Drinking Causes 1 in 10 Deaths...
Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 1:26 pm
...of Working-Age Adults, CDC Says
By Linda Carroll
NBCnews.com
A stunning one in 10 deaths in working-age adults may be due to excessive alcohol consumption, a new government study shows.
That adds up to 88,000 deaths per year from 2006 to 2010, according to the report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Put another way, that means that binge drinking and heavy regular drinking cut 30 years off the lives of those who died.
Some of those deaths were due to the long-range effects of chronic alcohol consumption at a rate of 15 or more drinks a week for men and 8 or more drinks a week for women. Those included mortality from breast cancer, liver disease and heart disease, CDC researchers reported.
Other deaths were associated with binge drinking—five or more drinks in a single bout for men and 4 or more for women. The top three causes of death included motor vehicle crashes (25 percent), homicides (16 percent) and falls (15 percent).
That adds up to 2.5 million years of potential life lost, according to the researchers’ calculations.
The new data are very concerning, said the report’s lead author, Mandy Stahre, who was a CDC researcher when the study was being conducted and is now an epidemiologist with the state of Washington.
“We looked at deaths from 2001 to 2005 and those numbers were high also,” Stahre said. “So it’s been going on for at least the past 10 years. It’s the third leading cause of preventable death. I don’t think it gets a much attention as tobacco which is the leading cause."
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By Linda Carroll
NBCnews.com
A stunning one in 10 deaths in working-age adults may be due to excessive alcohol consumption, a new government study shows.
That adds up to 88,000 deaths per year from 2006 to 2010, according to the report released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Put another way, that means that binge drinking and heavy regular drinking cut 30 years off the lives of those who died.
Some of those deaths were due to the long-range effects of chronic alcohol consumption at a rate of 15 or more drinks a week for men and 8 or more drinks a week for women. Those included mortality from breast cancer, liver disease and heart disease, CDC researchers reported.
Other deaths were associated with binge drinking—five or more drinks in a single bout for men and 4 or more for women. The top three causes of death included motor vehicle crashes (25 percent), homicides (16 percent) and falls (15 percent).
That adds up to 2.5 million years of potential life lost, according to the researchers’ calculations.
The new data are very concerning, said the report’s lead author, Mandy Stahre, who was a CDC researcher when the study was being conducted and is now an epidemiologist with the state of Washington.
“We looked at deaths from 2001 to 2005 and those numbers were high also,” Stahre said. “So it’s been going on for at least the past 10 years. It’s the third leading cause of preventable death. I don’t think it gets a much attention as tobacco which is the leading cause."
MORE
