A recent British research discovered that some people are more likely to cross the line with booze, especially those with higher income, more active social lives, better health and higher levels of education.
At the same time, women with higher incomes also turned out to present a higher risk of abusing the occasional drink when compared to those with more modest incomes. This research has focused on a rising health concern among the aging wealthier population: heavy drinking.
In order to quantify how much people drank and what other factors influenced this habit, researchers asked the participants questions about what they ate and how familiar they were with alcohol consumption. Some more inquiries were made on their levels of physical activity, and how often they felt depressed or lonely.
However, there was also a higher risk of heavy drinking for men who either lived alone or were divorced – the risk being measured in units: 50 for men and 35 for women. For men, the highest scores in harmful drinking peak during their mid-60s, with a sharp drop soon afterward. In the case of women, the risk of started to decline earlier than in men.
Being a successful, sociable, healthy, physically active and in your 50s appears to come with a price. Researchers recommend such individuals to curb down their drinking rate a little, as the risk of becoming alcoholics is higher than in their less successful peers.
And the problem is real, backed-up by statistics offered by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. According to their figures, roughly 16.6 million American adults are dealing with one or more drinking disorders, while 40 percent of senior citizens over 65 still turn to the occasional drink.
Data collected through the study’s questionnaire suggests that heavy drinking affects people later in life, and those who exhibit a successful lifestyle are even more prone to developing such unhealthy habits. Experts have set the safe level of drinking at one drink per day for women and two for men.
Moderate or light drinking surely has some documented health benefits, but drinking heavily has none of them. The study found that middle-aged and older people have a real problem with drinking above recommended limits, often in the privacy of their own homes.
Overstepping the limits after the age of 60 comes with serious effects and it’s associated with higher risk of developing certain medical conditions such as liver disease, mouth cancer and stroke.
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