Excessive alcohol use is responsible for one in 10 deaths in Americans between the ages of 20 and 64.
Copious alcohol consumption led to about 88,000 deaths per year between 2006 and 2010, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) news release reported. These deaths were due to the health effects of drinking too much over a long period of time, such as: "breast cancer, liver disease, and heart disease." Other deaths included in the statistics were related to the short term effects of alcohol, including: "violence, alcohol poisoning, and motor vehicle crashes."
About 70 percent of deaths due to excessive drinking were in the male population, about five percent were in individuals under the age of 21. The highest rate of alcohol-related deaths occurred in New Mexico.
"Excessive alcohol use is a leading cause of preventable death that kills many Americans in the prime of their lives," said Ursula E. Bauer, Ph.D., M.P.H., director of CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. "We need to redouble our efforts to implement scientifically proven public health approaches to reduce this tragic loss of life and the huge economic costs that result."
Excessive drinking is binge drinking (having over four drinks for women and five for men), heavy drinking (eight or more drinks a week for women, 15 for men), and any drinking done by pregnant women or those under the legal drinking age of 21.
To make their findings CDC researchers looked at the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) application, which provides state-specific estimates of alcohol-related death rates.
"It's shocking to see the public health impact of excessive drinking on working-age adults," Robert Brewer, M.D., M.S.P.H., head of CDC's Alcohol Program and one of the report's authors, said in the news release. "CDC is working with partners to support the implementation of strategies for preventing excessive alcohol use that are recommended by the Community Preventive Services Task Force, which can help reduce the health and social cost of this dangerous risk behavior."
