Tuesday 1 November 2022 09:04 PM Binge drinking now behind a FIFTH of deaths among adults under 50 trends now
Alcohol use is linked to as many as one in five US deaths from all causes, according to an official study — with states in the Plains suffering the highest mortality.
Research led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found there were around 90,000 fatalities among adults aged 20 to 65 per year between 2015-2019 in which booze was an underlying or contributing cause.
Alcohol accounted for 12 per cent of deaths from all causes during the five year period. When reduced to those aged 20 to 49, alcohol made up 20.3 per cent of deaths.
Causes of death attributable to alcohol use include alcoholic liver disease, poisoning, motor vehicle crashes, homicides, cirrhosis and hypertension.
The figures do not include the period of the Covid pandemic, when stacks of studies suggest binge drinking has increased due to boredom and economic troubles.
Alcohol use is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the US.
New Mexico has the highest alcohol mortality of any state, with 21.7 per cent of deaths in the state among the age group being linked to alcohol abuse. In Alaska and Wyoming, alcohol-related deaths accounted for nearly 20 per cent of deaths in the age group.
Mississippi and Alabama suffer the lowest share of alcohol related deaths, with both states attributing nine per cent of fatalities to the substance.
Separate National Institutes of Health (NIH) data indicates a quarter of American adults have engaged in binge drinking in the past month.
The CDC researchers, who published their findings Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, gathered national data from January 2015 to December 2019.
In total, there are 58 causes of death that could be tied to alcohol, including chronic conditions fatty liver disease and cirrhosis, cancers, car accidents.
Alcohol accounts for a bigger share of deaths among young people as they are both more likely to take part in risky drinking behaviors while also being less likely to die of many other common causes.
The CDC reports that nearly a quarter of Americans between 25 and 34 binge drink.
The study found that each year around 20,000 people between ages 20 and 34 die because of excessive alcohol use, accounting for more than one in four total deaths in the
