Binge Drinking: Not Just a Youth Issue

Is binge drinking just a young person's problem?

You hear a lot about binge drinking among high school and college-age youth, and rightly so. It's a big problem. But a Duke University study finds that it's a problem among older people too.

Binge drinking is defined as five or more drinks at one sitting. Duke University said that 22% of men and 9% of women between the ages of 50 to 64 reported binge drinking in the month before they were surveyed. Among ages 65 and older, it was 14% of men and 3% of women.

"We typically think of binge drinking as something that occurs with young people such as college students, and here we have examples of older closet drinkers," said Dan Blazer, a professor of psychiatry at Duke and the study lead author. "Because we don't expect older people to binge drink, this can be missed by a person's doctor because they are not asking."

Excessive alcohol use in older people can result in stroke, cardiovascular disease, liver disease, neurological damage and complications from diabetes.