(NBC News) – Heavy drinkers are likelier to get alcohol-related liver disease compared with decades ago, a study found. That’s most likely because certain groups, including women, are drinking more.

The risk that alcohol poses to women’s health has mounted over the last two decades, as they have begun to drink more frequently and in larger quantities.

Alcohol-related deaths among women more than doubled from 1999 to 2020. And deaths from alcohol-related hepatitis, a disease resulting in severe liver inflammation, nearly tripled among women over the same time period.

A new study, published Wednesday in the medical journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, similarly points to an elevated risk of alcohol-related liver disease among women. (Read More)