India, June 13 -- A new study shows that the death rate from alcohol-related liver disease in the U.S. has nearly doubled over the last 20 years and the COVID-19 pandemic made things worse.
The biggest increases were seen in women, young adults, and indigenous people, according to research published in JAMA Network Open.
In 2024, Dr. Brian Lee and his team at Keck Medicine conducted a follow-up study to understand how much alcohol people were drinking. They used data from the National Health Interview Survey, which collects health and lifestyle information from over 24,000 U.S. adults each year.
In this study, the scientists considered heavy drinking as 5 or more drinks in a day or over 15 drinks in a week for men, and 4 or more drinks i...