Health Issues

The typical college student loves to live wild and rock hard. The typical elderly person lives quietly and rocks a chair. These two groups of people are almost as different as two groups can get. However, despite what both groups of people may think, the elderly and college may actually have something in common.

A study done by Duke Researchers shows that older people are participating in binge drinking practices that most attribute to the college scene. The study, done in collaboration with the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, showed that 22 percent of men and 9 percent of women ages 50 to 64 had participated in binge drinking in the month before the survey. This survey was based on a sample of 11,000 men and women. The survey also found that 19 percent of the men and 13 percent of the women had two or more drinks a day, which the American Geriatric Society guidelines considers heavy drinking

It should be noted that the study considered Binge drinking to be five or more drinks, which I think college students could do at the first bar. However, older people dont metabolize alcohol as quickly, and the increase use of medicine within the elderly community has experts worried. In the past, physicians have overlooked binge drinking among the elderly, because they had been concentrating on the drinking of the young. Physicians are considering that todays elderly binge drinkers were probably yesterdays college binge drinkers. People dont tend to change their behaviors.

However, I think that the elderly should extend a thank you to the binge drinkers in the college world. Because they are willing to do it in public and make fools of themselves, the elderly binge drinkers have been able to enjoy their drinks in solitude without the molestation of their doctors.