It's completely not a surprising fact to hear of men drinking more alcohol than women. However, the facts about alcohol consumption are slowly turning the other way around as a new study suggests that the alcohol intake among women grows, reports say.
In the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between the years 2002 and 2012, covering about 70,000 respondents every year, the gathered data shows a minor difference between men and women in terms of alcohol consumption and harms related to alcohol intake, adding that the gap between the two genders has been declining from time to time.
"We found that over that period of time, differences in measures such as current drinking, number of drinking days per month, reaching criteria for an alcohol use disorder, and driving under the influence of alcohol in the past year, all narrowed for females and males." said by Dr. Aaron White, the author of the study.
While the study states that men still have higher alcohol consumption than women, the gap is said to be going tighter from time to time, as confirmed by the senior adviser of the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Reports say that between the years 2002 and 2012, the rate of women drinking alcohol has increased from 45 percent to 48 percent, while the rate for men drinking alcohol declined from 57 to 56, as quoted in the researchers report in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Besides that, the study also suggests that the number of days women usually consumes for alcohol consumption have increased from 6.8 to 7.3 days, while for men shows a decreasing figure of 9.9 down to 9.5 days.
George F. Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said "This study confirms what other recent reports have suggested about changing patterns of alcohol use by men and women in the U.S."
Such findings put more worry among concerned health researchers and health organizations as women could face higher risks of various possible alcohol-related health impacts, such as cancer, liver inflammation and cardiovascular diseases.
