{"id":31014,"date":"2025-07-03T09:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T09:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31014"},"modified":"2025-07-03T09:24:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T09:24:07","slug":"how-drinking-alcohol-affects-you-in-older-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=31014","title":{"rendered":"How Drinking Alcohol Affects You in Older Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Alcohol can present health problems for even light or occasional drinkers.<\/p>\n

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Drinking is harmful to your health at any age. But as you get older, the risks become greater \u2014 even with the same amount of drinks.<\/p>\n

Alcohol affects \u201cvirtually every organ system in the body,\u201d including the muscles and blood vessels, digestive system, heart and brain, said Sara Jo Nixon, the director of the Center for Addiction Research & Education at the University of Florida. \u201cIt particularly impacts older adults, because there\u2019s already some decline or impact in those areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a whole different set\u201d of health risk factors for older drinkers, said Paul Sacco, a professor of social work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore who studies substance use and aging. People might not realize that the drinks they used to tolerate well are now affecting their brains and bodies differently, he said.<\/p>\n

Alcohol can present new problems in older age \u2014 particularly at 65 and up \u2014 for even light or occasional drinkers. Older adults tend to have less muscle mass and retain less water in their tissues compared with younger people, which can increase blood alcohol concentration, said Aaron White, a senior advisor at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. This means it takes fewer drinks for older people to feel intoxicated, and heightens the risk of severe injury from falls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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According to Dr. Nixon\u2019s research<\/a>, older people also show deficits in working memory at lower blood alcohol concentrations than younger drinkers. In another study<\/a> Dr. Nixon worked on, some older adults in driving simulations showed signs of impairment after less than one drink.<\/p>\n

Drinking alcohol can increase the risk of developing chronic conditions like dementia<\/a>, diabetes<\/a>, cancer<\/a>, hypertension<\/a> and heart disease<\/a>. But it can also worsen outcomes<\/a> for the majority of older adults already living with chronic disease, said Aryn Phillips, an assistant professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois Chicago who studies alcohol and aging.<\/p>\n

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Alcohol can present health problems for even light or occasional drinkers.Drinking is harmful to your health at any age. But as you get older, the risks become greater \u2014 even with the same amount of drinks.Alcohol affects \u201cvirtually every organ system in the body,\u201d including the muscles and blood vessels, digestive system, heart and brain, said Sara Jo Nixon, the director of the Center for Addiction Research & Education at the University of Florida. \u201cIt particularly impacts older adults, because there\u2019s already some decline or impact in those areas.\u201d\u201cThere\u2019s a whole different set\u201d of health risk factors for older drinkers, said Paul Sacco, a professor of social work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore who studies substance use and aging. People might not realize that the drinks they used to tolerate well are now affecting their brains and bodies differently, he said.Alcohol can present new problems in older age \u2014 particularly at 65 and up \u2014 for even light or occasional drinkers. Older adults tend to have less muscle mass and retain less water in their tissues compared with younger people, which can increase blood alcohol concentration, said Aaron White, a senior advisor at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. This means it takes fewer drinks for older people to feel intoxicated, and heightens the risk of severe injury from falls.According to Dr. Nixon\u2019s research, older people also show deficits in working memory at lower blood alcohol concentrations than younger drinkers. In another study Dr. Nixon worked on, some older adults in driving simulations showed signs of impairment after less than one drink.Drinking alcohol can increase the risk of developing chronic conditions like dementia, diabetes, cancer, hypertension and heart disease. But it can also worsen outcomes for the majority of older adults already living with chronic disease, said Aryn Phillips, an assistant professor of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois Chicago who studies alcohol and aging.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":31016,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31014","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\/31014","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=31014"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31017,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31014\/revisions\/31017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}