Study shows Americans drinking less alcohol

BOSTON Researchers have said that on the whole, Americans are drinking less beer and more wine and the consumption of hard liquor remains fairly steady. The study was published in the The American Journal of Medicine August edition.

According to researchers at Boston University’s School of Medicine, middle aged persons consumer about one-third less alcohol than people of the same age did 50 years ago. Persons born in the later 20th century tend to drink more moderately than their parents. And more and more people said that they don’t drink alcohol at all.

Lead researcher and professor of medicine and public health at the School of Medicine, R. Curtis Ellison, said, “It looks like moderate drinking has been increasing, heavy drinking is down a little bit, and total alcohol consumption is down a little bit. It is encouraging news that more people are drinking moderately, and the average intake is coming down rather than shooting up.”

Ellison’s research team based their conclusions off of data on 8,000 people as part of the Framingham Heart Study.

No reasons were proposed for why there has been the gradual decline in drinking across the population, but Ellison said that he believes the trend towards moderate drinking and avoiding binge-drinking, is a step in the right direction.