{"id":19628,"date":"2025-01-09T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T10:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19628"},"modified":"2025-01-09T10:24:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T10:24:46","slug":"alcohol-carries-new-risks-in-middle-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=19628","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol Carries New Risks in Middle Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
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People over 35 can experience different physical effects than younger drinkers.<\/p>\n

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Americans are drinking more as they hit midlife \u2014 and suffering the consequences.<\/p>\n

People between the ages of 35 and 50 reported record-high levels<\/a> of binge drinking in 2022. One recent study<\/a> found that the greatest increase in heavy alcohol use between 2018 and 2022 was among people in their 40s. Doctors are particularly concerned about rising alcohol consumption among middle-aged women, as more of them develop<\/a> alcohol-related liver and heart disease.<\/p>\n

Researchers are not entirely sure why middle-aged drinking is on the rise, though they noted that adults in this age range faced the pressures of caring for both children and aging parents, heightened demands at work and \u201chistoric\u201d levels of loneliness<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the trend is troubling: Middle age is already the time when the health effects from decades of drinking, including cancer<\/a> and heart or liver disease, often start to emerge. And drinking is also more dangerous at midlife, as the body becomes less able to process alcohol and as more people develop chronic diseases that drinking can worsen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to be alarmist,\u201d said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University. \u201cBut I think at this point, it\u2019s pretty alarming.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A night of heavy drinking is more risky at 55 than at 25, for a few reasons. Alcohol can compound health issues that are common in middle age, like blood sugar problems or high blood pressure. Even a drink or two can temporarily raise a person\u2019s heart rate<\/a>, for example, increasing the risk of heart attack or heart failure.<\/a> These effects are especially troubling for those who already have preexisting heart disease.<\/p>\n

And common medications people take more frequently in middle age, like blood thinners,<\/a> can interact with even small amounts of alcohol and potentially cause serious complications like internal bleeding.<\/p>\n

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People over 35 can experience different physical effects than younger drinkers.Americans are drinking more as they hit midlife \u2014 and suffering the consequences.People between the ages of 35 and 50 reported record-high levels of binge drinking in 2022. One recent study found that the greatest increase in heavy alcohol use between 2018 and 2022 was among people in their 40s. Doctors are particularly concerned about rising alcohol consumption among middle-aged women, as more of them develop alcohol-related liver and heart disease.Researchers are not entirely sure why middle-aged drinking is on the rise, though they noted that adults in this age range faced the pressures of caring for both children and aging parents, heightened demands at work and \u201chistoric\u201d levels of loneliness.But the trend is troubling: Middle age is already the time when the health effects from decades of drinking, including cancer and heart or liver disease, often start to emerge. And drinking is also more dangerous at midlife, as the body becomes less able to process alcohol and as more people develop chronic diseases that drinking can worsen.\u201cI don\u2019t like to be alarmist,\u201d said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University. \u201cBut I think at this point, it\u2019s pretty alarming.\u201dA night of heavy drinking is more risky at 55 than at 25, for a few reasons. Alcohol can compound health issues that are common in middle age, like blood sugar problems or high blood pressure. Even a drink or two can temporarily raise a person\u2019s heart rate, for example, increasing the risk of heart attack or heart failure. These effects are especially troubling for those who already have preexisting heart disease.And common medications people take more frequently in middle age, like blood thinners, can interact with even small amounts of alcohol and potentially cause serious complications like internal bleeding.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19630,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19631,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19628\/revisions\/19631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}