How alcohol intake can change over a lifetime

ConclusionThis research combined information from nine studies, to model how alcohol intake changes over a lifetime in men and women in the UK, and is reportedly the first to do this.There are some points and potential limitations to note: The authors note that the different studies captured information on drinking in different ways, and although they tried to standardise this, they were not able to obtain complete information on drinking patterns. The data on which the models are based come from different periods, when alcohol consumption habits and strength of alcohol available may have differed. The authors looked at this, and say that the patterns seen in different periods appeared similar, although the rate at which consumption changed differed slightly. There were also some differences in patterns seen between cohorts which were not due to differences in the period. For example, older women in a Scottish cohort had lower consumption than women of a similar age in the cohort of civil servants in London, despite this data being collected in a similar period. Other factors, such as socioeconomic status, could be contributing to these. Not all cohorts covered the same age range, so although the total number of people being analysed was large (almost 60,000), each individual age would have a smaller number of people. It was not clear how the nine cohorts were identified, and whether there were others available that were missed. While there is more to ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Older people Source Type: news