As alcohol-related deaths rise in the US, women are increasingly at risk, study shows

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN

(CNN) — Men are nearly three times more likely than women to die from alcohol use in the United States, but a new report shows that gap has narrowed as the risk for women has grown, especially in recent years.

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.

From 2018 to 2020, the alcohol-related death rate among men increased by an average of 12.5% each year. But for women, rates surged by an average of nearly 15% each year in that same time period.

For this study, which published Friday in JAMA Network Open, researchers analyzed data from a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database that tracks underlying causes of death. 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.

Overall, the study found that alcohol-related deaths have been increasing among both men and women across all age groups. But the gap between men and women has narrowed most among seniors age 65 and older.

This shift doesn’t necessarily mean that senior women are drinking more, the researchers say. Instead, it could point to “the larger burden of accumulating harms of chronic alcohol use among female individuals.”

A few biological differences make women more susceptible to the effects of alcohol, according to the researchers. For example, women tend to have lower levels of alcohol-metabolizing enzymes, which can lead to prolonged exposure and greater organ damage over time.

Stress is also a key factor for alcohol misuse among men and women, and a narrowing gap in alcohol use could reflect an increase in stress and stress-related disorders among women in recent years, the researchers wrote.

“There’s an interaction with mental health that has been more exposed during the pandemic,” George F. Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told CNN last year. “Women are twice as likely as men to experience anxiety and depression, and the stresses of the pandemic likely hit extra hard.”

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved treatments for alcohol use disorder, but they have largely been tested in men.

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