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- Overall, researchers found men died at a higher rate than women. But when analyzing annual increases in deaths, the largest increase was among white women.
"With the increases in alcohol use among women, there's been increases in harms for women including ER visits, hospitalization and deaths," Aaron White, who authored the paper, told NPR.
The research shows that in 2017, alcohol proved to be even more deadly than illicit drugs, including opioids. That year there were about 70,000 drug overdose deaths — about 2,300 fewer than those involving alcohol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Only cigarettes are deadlier than alcohol; more than 480,000 people die each year in the U.S. because of smoking-related illnesses.