MIDDLE CLASS DRINK EPIDEMIC
Affluent over-50s ‘sleep-walking’ into health crisis
MIDDLE-CLASS over-50s have become a generation of problem drinkers, experts warn.
Men and women who have done well in their careers and enjoy good health are the most likely to drink to harmful levels, according to a British study.
Researchers compared the drinking habits of 9,000 over-50s to their income, lifestyle and family situation. They found that those who were wealthier, better educated and whose children had left home were more likely to drink to harmful levels – more than 21 units (nine pints of beer) a week for men and more than 14 units (one and a half bottles of wine) for women.
Warning that heavy drinking is now a ‘middleclass phenomenon’, the experts said affluent baby boomers were ‘sleepwalking’ to ill health.
Study leader Professor Jose Iparraguirre, chief economist at Age UK, called for the Government to lower guidelines for older people.
He said: ‘Harmful drinking may be a hidden health and social problem in otherwise successful older people.’
The findings bolster a growing body of evidence that middle-class, middle-aged Britons are the heaviest drinkers in the country. Doctors fear that older, more hardened drinkers are contributing to increasing rates of obesity, cancer and liver disease.
The new research focused only on the over-50s, and did not compare their drinking to that of younger groups, but previous research has found that middle-aged people are drinking more frequently than their children’s generation.
There is growing evidence that teenagers and young adults are drinking less than they did in the past. And those youngsters who do drink tend to binge once or twice a week. Those of
their parents’ generation are more likely to have two or three drinks a day – spreading their consumption across the week.
Experts suspect this shift is largely to do with price and affordability, with older people more able to afford alcohol at current prices. It is also now more socially acceptable to drink at home.
The research, based on surveys of 9, 50 people carried out in 009 and repeated in
011, suggests that women are more likely to increase their drinking once they have retired, and then slow down as they get older. Men’s drinking is not so closely tied to retirement, but consumption peaks in the early 60s before declining.
Men who were divorced or separated are more likely to be heavy drinkers.
The researchers wrote in the medical journal BMJ Open: ‘We can sketch – at the risk of much simplification – the problem of harmful drinking among people aged 50 or over in England as a middle-class phenomenon: people in better health, higher income, with higher educational attainment and socially more active are more likely to drink at harmful levels.
‘Our findings suggest that harmful drinking in later life is more prevalent among people who exhibit a lifestyle associated with affluence.’
Professor Iparraguirre said: ‘Our analysis challenges popular perceptions of who is drinking too much. It suggests public health messaging is not reaching highincome groups who are most at risk.
‘Because this group is typically healthier than other parts of the older population, they might not realise that what they are doing is putting their health in danger.’
Liver expert Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said last night: ‘This research shows that the baby-boom generation is the first cohort to experience the impact of increased access to affordable alcohol, across all social classes.
‘Whilst it may be true that middle-class drinkers are able to offset some health problems because of healthier diets and lifestyles more generally, the risks of serious health harms are still significant.
‘For example, even low levels of drinking increase the risk of developing cancer. This highlights the need for more consumer information, including mandatory health warnings on alcohol product labelling.’
John Larsen, of Drinkaware, said: ‘Older people could potentially be sleepwalking into long-term health problems as a result of their drinking patterns. In fact, half of 45 to 64-year-olds who drink to harmful levels told us that they believe moderate drinking is good for your health.’