Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine studied 8,600 white adults in Framingham, MA, over 50 years. The participants, born between 1900 to 1959, joined the study when they were at least 28 years old and answered questions about their lifestyle and health, including their alcohol use for the past few decades.
The researchers found that, overall, people are drinking less. And each generation drank less than previous generations, with heavier drinking giving way to moderate drinking. As participants got older, they drank less beer and more wine.
Though the drinking amounts went down, the rate of alcoholism remained the same -- 13 percent of men, 4 percent of women. The study found men drank more beer until they hit their mid-30s, then cut back until it made up about a quarter of their alcohol intake in their mid-70s.
Women also cut back on beer and increased wine as they got older.
The study found no drop in new cases of alcoholism and other alcohol use disorders among adults aged 40-79.
The Framingham study began in 1948 and has only Caucasian participants, so the results may not apply to minority groups.
