People over 65 should be set lower safe drinking limits amid growing evidence they are bingeing on alcohol, academics have said.
A team from Newcastle and Sunderland Universities have published a paper which looked into why elderly people are drinking at hazardous or harmful levels.
The study - funded by Age UK and published in the journal PLOS ONE - found that many older people may not recognise they are heavy drinkers if they do not see themselves as dependent and therefore having a problem.
As part of the study, organised through Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, academics interviewed and held focus groups with 53 men and women aged 65 to 90. The aim was to find out the reasons why so many of people in that age group continue to drink to unhealthy levels, and to reveal their attitudes to alcohol.
Current recommended safe levels of drinking are 14 units a week for women and 21 for men.
But many of those interviewed were very blase about high alcohol intake and questioned health practitioners who cautioned them to drink less. One woman drank a bottle of wine every day, about 63 units a week, but said she did not have a problem because it did not have a big effect on her. "If somebody found me in the corner drunk that would probably shock me into stopping but that has never happened," she said.
Source: Belfast Telegraph, 08/08/13
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