In a recent study, researchers found that the beneficial and harmful effects of drinking alcohol may be determined by the drinker’s age.
They found that for younger people, alcohol is more harmful than beneficial, while for older people alcohol is more beneficial than harmful.
The research was conducted by a team from Boston Medical Center.
Previous research has examined the health effects of drinking alcohol, but the findings are quite inconsistent.
In the current study, the team analyzed data from government statistics on cause of death and health benefits from 2006 to 2010 in the U.S.
They used the Alcohol-Related Disease Impact software application from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to obtain data.
The researchers found that age plays an important role in determining deaths caused by alcohol consumption.
For example, in people ages 20 to 49, there were about 35.8% of the total deaths caused by alcohol abuse, and only 4.5% of deaths were prevented by alcohol drinking
In the age group 65 and older, there was a similar 35.0% of the mortality caused by drinking alcohol, but 80% of the deaths were prevented by alcohol drinking.
The team also found that 58.4% of potential life lost due to drinking occurred in people ages 20 to 49, and only 15% of the overall years of life lost from alcohol drinking in older people.
Generally, younger adults are more likely to die from alcohol, while older people are most likely to get the benefits of moderate drinking.
The researchers suggest that previous studies showing benefits from moderate alcohol drinking daily tested people age 50 and older.
This means these studies eliminate all people who have died before age 50 due to alcohol drinking.
They also suggest that people who age 50 and older get some benefits from alcohol may be because they were healthier or had safer drinking habits.
Future work needs to test the effects of alcohol drinking across the full age spectrum.
The study lead author is Timothy Naimi, M.D., M.P.H. from the Boston Medical Center.
The research is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
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