Deaths from alcohol misuse increased by nearly 46 percent over a two-decade period, accounting for 35,823 deaths in 2017, and shows men are more likely than women to die from alcohol abuse, a Washington Examiner analysis of mortality data released Monday shows.
"I consider alcohol the elephant in the room when it comes to the drug abuse issues that have been surfacing," said Dr. George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
The numbers showed deaths from alcohol poisoning, liver disease, and cirrhosis, but did not include deaths from automobile accidents or from falls.
The deaths are still lower than those caused by opioids, which claimed 47,600 lives in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Suicides also claimed 47,173 people. But when accidents linked to drinking are tied in, the deaths from alcohol go up to 88,000 per year, according to federal reports.
According to the CDC, alcohol deaths are highest among people between the ages of 50 to 64, and men are twice as likely to die from misusing alcohol.
Alcohol poisoning that happens when drink is combined with drugs such as Valium are involved, with alcohol remaining the underlying factor.
"The population is aging; people are taking more pills, but they don't know you can't drink on top of these pills, which becomes a lethal combination," Koob commented.
However, the federal data shows underaged drinking is at record lows.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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