A new UK study sheds light on what the researchers consider to be a growing health problem among people over 50s: harmful drinking.
In a research recently published in BMJ, harmful drinking, or consuming at least 22 to 15 units of alcohol per week among men and women respectively, is becoming increasingly common among successful agers. These are people who are more than 50 years old and have accumulated considerable wealth or income. They are also active, healthy, and sociable.
For the study, they used the data now available in ELSA (English Longitudinal Survey), which focused on the quality of life and aging of a sample population. The team focused on the years 2008 to 2009, as well as 2010 to 2011. Overall, they gathered no less than 9,000 survey responses.
Considering a variety of factors for the study such as income, educational attainment, age, mental and emotional well-being, employment, and social engagement, they were able to come up with the following results.
First, men are more likely to engage in harmful drinking than women, who would slow down with the alcohol and wine as they age. Although drinking usually peaks by the time they were in their 60s, the habit actually begins when they were a few years younger than that age. According to the researchers, it's possible that the overdrinking may have been a habit they had while they were still very young.
Different factors have different effects on harmful drinking risks. For instance, their emotional state, such as whether they were lonely or not, usually don't have any bearing on the risk of harmful drinking, except for old men who may have been divorced or have been linking alone. Conversely, men who still have responsibility to their families are less likely to drink too much and often.
Interestingly, income boosts the risk of drinking among the women, although both sexes may drink a lot due to better education. Those who smoke are also prone to drinking more.
