An annoying number of Americans die of alcohol

Less Americans say they are Drink alcohol Now more than they have done decades ago, but for those who do it, this habit seems to have become more beneficial over time, as alcohol -related mortality in the United States has doubled in the past twenty years.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles examined data from the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find that the alcohol-related death rate increased between 1999 and 2024, with a sharp rise during the peak of the Covid-19s. While these deaths decreased since that peak, they remain significantly high.

“These results emphasize the urgent need for the targeted policies to reduce excessive alcohol consumption and improve access to treatment,” the authors write on paper Published Tuesday in Plos Global Health.

A terrible rise

The new results swing with previous studies that also Proposal Alcohol -related deaths have been climbing for decades. But it remained unclear regarding the specified types of alcohol deaths, or whether the increase in the deadly drinking that was seen during the epidemic continued.

To try to distinguish the answers to these questions, the researchers analyzed death data from the Center for Disease Control over 14 causes of alcohol use. These included alcoholic liver diseases, several forms of alcohol poisoning, as well as mental and behavioral conditions caused by alcohol.

In general, alcohol -related death rate increased by 89 % between 1999 and 2024. The bloodiest years during this period were 2021, which saw 54,258 deaths that year. By 2024, deaths began to settle, but the average mortality rate caused by alcohol was still 25 % higher than in 2019.

Trends in deadly drinking

The researchers said the results also provide more clarity about those who die of alcohol abuse, and why.

Most of the alcohol -related deaths were caused by alcoholic liver disease, followed by mental and behavioral conditions caused by alcohol. Interestingly, the alcohol poisoning mortality rate has been low throughout the study period, indicating that the acute excess dose is relatively uncommon compared to the use of chronic and heavy alcohol.

Alcohol -related deaths were historically more common among men, but the results of researchers indicate that they may change: they have found that the largest increase in the death rate of any demographic during the study period was among women between the ages of 25 and 34 years, followed by men in the same age group. The indigenous American American population and Alaska were found in a special danger.

The author of the higher study, Maria R. said. Dalsonia, Assistant Professor of Assistant to the Department of Mass Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, in A. statement. “In particular, for the population between the ages of 25 and 34, a male mortality rate decreased to three to three in 1999 to one to one in 2024.”

The researchers indicated that they looked at the deaths related to alcohol use, so it is likely that the results they reached do not embody the full losses of alcohol over the health of Americans. It is known that alcohol raises risks or worsened, and countless health conditions, including some types of cancer. And other research Proposal More than 178,000 deaths in the United States are associated with excessive alcohol use that occurs every year.

The researchers said that more work should be done to find out the best ways to prevent these deaths.

They wrote: “The high mortality rate caused by alcohol and its heterogeneous trends through population factors highlight the need for a better understanding of the social and economic factors associated with excessive alcohol consumption and targeted protection and treatment efforts, especially for males, young Indian/Alaska.”