Another paper reported that the rate of alcohol-related cirrhosis from 2009 to 2015 rose 50% for women, compared with 30% for men. Although the gender gap in alcohol consumption is narrowing among all ages, the reasons differ. For people over 26, women are increasing their alcohol consumption faster than men.

Trends in Alcohol-Related Deaths by Sex in the US, 1999-2020

The map shows the share of all road traffic deaths attributed to alcohol consumption over the national legal limit for alcohol consumption. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), in its Global Burden of Disease study, provides estimates of the number of deaths attributed to the range of risk factors.5 In the visualization, we see the number of deaths per year attributed to each risk factor. This chart is shown for the global total but can be explored for any country or region using the “Change country or region” toggle. In the chart, we see the relationship between average per capita alcohol consumption – in liters of pure alcohol per year – versus gross domestic product (GDP) per capita across countries. The first map shows this in terms of spirits as a share of total alcohol consumption.

Alcohol and Breast Cancer

Early diagnosis in crucial; in Hazel’s case it was a turning point that prompted her to make the lifestyle changes her body needed to restore her liver to full health. Chhatwal agreed, adding that life stressors like financial insecurity, work pressure or other mental health struggles may contribute to the rise in alcohol consumption. By the time Victoria Cooper enrolled in an alcohol treatment program in 2018, she was “drinking for survival,” not pleasure, she says — multiple vodka shots in the morning, at lunchtime and beyond. In the treatment program, she saw other women in their 20s struggling with alcohol and other drugs. “It was the first time in a very long time that I had not felt alone,” she says.

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And while alcohol purchasing seemed to slow down a bit in 2023, sales of “ready-to-drink” cocktails continued to increase — more than doubling since 2019, up to $10.7 billion. Many factors may have contributed to these increases in alcohol-related deaths. These include the availability of alcohol, increases in people experiencing mental health conditions, and challenges in accessing health care. Learn up-to-date facts and statistics on alcohol consumption and its impact in the United States and globally. Explore topics related to alcohol misuse and treatment, underage drinking, the effects of alcohol on the human body, and more.

Emerging Adults

Some participants had been in detox 20 times yet had never heard this information, Sugarman says. What’s more, despite alcohol’s temporary calming properties, it can actually increase anxiety and depression, research suggests; some studies show it may lead to depression more quickly in women than in men. In Cooper’s teenage years, alcohol helped her overcome social anxiety, she says. “It’s hard to get out of that cycle of shame, drinking and abuse,” Cooper says. That common image of who is affected by alcohol disorders, echoed throughout pop culture, was misleading over a decade ago when Cooper was in college.

When Should Women Avoid Drinking?

Alcohol-related deaths included alcohol-related poisoning, liver disease, gastritis, and others; they did not include unintentional injuries, homicides or others that may have been indirectly or partially related to alcohol use. For men, the rate of alcohol-related deaths has been on the rise since 2009, with particularly sharp increases each year since 2018. But the upward trend for women started at least a decade earlier and has been rising faster, on average, each year since. When examining sex-specific trends, male individuals had a stable trend from 1999 to 2009 (APC, 0.0; 95% CI, −0.5 to 0.4), with increasing trends at an annual rate of 3.0% (95% CI, 2.4%-3.6%) from 2009 to 2018 and 12.5% (95% CI, 6.4%-19.1%) from 2018 to 2020. Still, there are some widely agreed-upon guidelines — drinking thresholds above which a person’s risk of developing a disease or shaving time off their life significantly increases, according to the data. Alcohol use is most prevalent among people in their early-to-mid-20s, and tends to decrease slightly as people age.

Frequency of Adult Binge Drinking by State, 2022

The prevalence of alcohol dependence in men is typically higher than in women across all countries. This interactive map shows the annual average alcohol consumption of alcohol, expressed per person aged 15 years or older. To account for the differences in alcohol content of different alcoholic drinks (e.g., beer, wine, spirits), this is reported in liters of pure alcohol per year. Tonight, the BBC aired a Panorama programme focusing on the rising rates of alcohol-related liver disease among women in the UK. We worked closely with the producers to provide vital information about liver disease, alcohol misuse, and what needs to be done to tackle the issue.

• Some individuals should avoid alcohol completely, such as those who are pregnant or might be pregnant.
• In fact, among adolescents and emerging adults, females are now more likely to report drinking and getting drunk in the past month than their male peers for the first time since researchers began measuring such behaviors.
• Global data on the prevalence and effectiveness of alcohol use disorder treatment is incomplete.
• Males accounted for the majority (76%) of alcohol-related deaths over the years (721,587 males, 223,293 females).

Wegovy linked to lower risk of alcohol use disorder in real-world study

• Explore topics related to alcohol misuse and treatment, underage drinking, the effects of alcohol on the human body, and more.
• In Cooper’s teenage years, alcohol helped her overcome social anxiety, she says.
• Objective  To examine sex differences in the burden and trends of alcohol-related mortality in the US from 1999 to 2020.
• For example, research suggests that women are more likely than men to experience hangovers and alcohol-induced blackouts at comparable doses of alcohol.5,6 Other biological differences may contribute as well.
• When stratified by race and ethnicity, recent trends in alcohol-related mortality were found to have increased in both male and female individuals.

Subsequently, the rates accelerated significantly, with a more pronounced increase of 3.8% (95% CI, 3.5%-4.4%) per year from 2011 to 2019. On further examination by sex, both male and female individuals experienced increasing trends in alcohol-related mortality rates, but the rate of increase was higher among female individuals than among male individuals. Meaning  Although alcohol-related deaths have historically been more prevalent among men than women, recent temporal trends suggest a narrowing of this gap, with increasing rates of alcohol-related deaths among female individuals compared with male individuals. It is important to consider the unique factors that might influence alcohol use among women, and the unique direct and secondhand health effects that alcohol poses for women, when developing prevention strategies to address alcohol use and related harms. Among women who are pregnant, up to 14% report currently drinking, according to CDC data.

• Heavy drinking was lowest among adults aged 65 and over compared with adults of other ages and highest among non-Hispanic white adults compared with non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic Asian, and Hispanic adults.
• She is one of a growing number of young women who have experienced alcohol-related liver damage, despite not regarding herself as being dependent on alcohol.
• However, a steeper increase was observed for females (136% in numbers, 85% in age-adjusted rates) than for males (93% in numbers and 39% in rates).
• Some participants had been in detox 20 times yet had never heard this information, Sugarman says.

Alcoholism and alcohol use disorders

Both are measured in terms of pure alcohol/ethanol intake rather than the total quantity of the beverage. Wine contains around 12% pure alcohol per volume, so that one liter of wine contains 0.12 liters of pure alcohol. Beer contains around 5% of pure alcohol per volume1 so that one liter of beer contains 0.05 liters of pure alcohol. Data on the share who don’t drink alcohol by gender and age group in the UK is available here.

Share of adults who drink alcohol

Over Women and Alcoholism the years, rates of alcohol-related deaths were highest for males and females in the age range of 45 to 74, but the biggest increase in rates occurred among young adults ages 25 to 34 for both genders. Deaths related to injuries and overdoses increased significantly for females ages 16 to 20 but did not change for males. Although alcohol-related mortality increased each year for non-Hispanic White males and females, there were initial declines early on for several groups. By the end of the study period, deaths were increasing in all racial and ethnic groups for both males and females in nearly every age group. When stratified by age and sex, alcohol-related mortality trends were found to be increasing among both male and female individuals across all age groups. However, among individuals younger than 60 years, the rate of increase in the most recent trend was higher among male individuals than female individuals.