Press Releases: Northwest
September 23, 2004
Consequences of excessive drinking are huge, says local researcher who participated in new federal study
More than a thousand deaths in Oregon alone
PORTLAND, Ore. – A new study by Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research's Jeffrey Fellows, PhD, and colleagues throughout the United States estimates that more than 75,000 Americans died in 2001 from excessive alcohol consumption—including more than 1,000 in Oregon alone.
They also found that excessive drinking shortened the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years (27 years in Oregon), resulting in 2.3 million years of potential life lost. Oregonians who died from alcohol-related causes lost approximately 45,000 years of life. The article appears in the Sept. 24 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to Fellows and his co-authors, "These results emphasize the importance of adopting effective strategies to reduce excessive drinking, including increasing alcohol excise taxes and screening for alcohol misuse in clinical settings."
Excessive drinking is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States, topped only by smoking and obesity. In the United States, excessive drinking for men is typically defined as an average of more than two drinks per day or more than four drinks per occasion; for women, it is an average of more than one drink per day or more than three drinks per occasion.
The study, the first on this issue since 1989, shows that deaths attributable to excessive drinking were almost evenly divided between chronic conditions (46 percent) such as liver disease and acute conditions (54 percent) such as car crashes. All deaths from acute conditions were due to binge drinking (consuming five or more drinks on one occasion). Most deaths from excessive drinking occurred among men (72 percent), and most of the men who died were age 35 or older (75 percent).
Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research, founded in 1964, is a non-profit research institution whose mission is advancing knowledge to improve health.
Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health care organization. Founded in 1945, it serves the health needs of about 450,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
