‘The Gender Gap Is Narrowing’: Excessive Alcohol-Related Deaths For Women On The Rise, Study Says

Excessive alcohol deaths for women are on the rise, according to a new study. (Photo: Yui Mok/PA Wire URN:42004409 Press Association via AP Images)

A new study from JAMA Network Open examining excessive alcohol deaths in the U.S. cited an increase in fatalities for the female demographic. The study, which pulled two decades’ worth of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concluded that women are binge drinking in higher numbers than ever before, and many are dying from it, NBC News reported.

Although men are statistically more likely to die of alcohol-related deaths than women, the female alcoholic mortality rate has increased by 14.7%, compared to 12.5% in men.

According to an article that ran in the New York Times, alcohol-related deaths have increased in the U.S. for both genders, and while men maintain a higher rate, women appear to be closing the gap.

From 2012 to 2020, alcohol-related deaths among women 65 years of age and older increased by 6.7% each year, in comparison with an increase of 5.2% for men each year, per the New York Times.

“It’s become more and more socially acceptable for women to drink as much as men,” Doctor Peter Martin told NBC.

Though Martin was not involved in the study, he is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences who specializes in addiction at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.

According to Martin, the period of time from taking one’s first drink to developing medical conditions is shorter for women. A variety of reasons are behind this, one of which is that women have lower amounts of the enzyme “alcohol dehydrogenase,” which breaks liquor down. Because of this, the toxins in liquor remain in the female body for a longer period.

NBC also spoke to Dr. Lisa Ganjhu, an associate professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Disease at NYU. Ganjhu said women “don’t need to drink as much as men to develop liver disease.”

“I’ve had to talk to a fair number of women about their alcohol use,” Ganjhu said. “I had one patient who developed pancreatitis from drinking ask me when she could start drinking again. She said it wasn’t acceptable to not drink with her clients. It’s mind-boggling.”

As far as the demographics of which women are likely to binge-drink the most, women in midlife with high socioeconomic statuses were cited as the most vulnerable. Colombia University Professor of Epidemiology Katherine Keyes cited women with the most education and highest-status occupations as being particularly at risk for binge drinking.

The study additionally cited the following potential factors:

“It is likely that the narrowing gap in sex differences for alcohol mortality rates, which also parallels the narrowing gap in the patterns of alcohol use and misuse, may be reflective of an increase in stress levels and stress-related disorders among women in recent decades and, particularly, in recent years.”

Dr. Ibraheem Karaye, a professor and director of the health science program at Hofstra University in New York, said: “The gender gap is narrowing.”

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