About 88,000 U.S. deaths due to alcohol from 2006 to 2010

ATLANTA, March 13 (UPI) -- Excessive alcohol consumption resulted in some 88,000 U.S. deaths and millions of years in shortened lifespans from 2006 to 2010, officials say.

Katherine Gonzales of the Michigan Department of Community Health, Jim Roeber of the New Mexico Department of Health, Dafna Kanny of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and colleagues estimated the cost of excessive alcohol consumption resulting in premature death in 2006 was $223 billion.

The age-adjusted median alcohol-attributable deaths rate was 28.5 per 100,000 population with the highest at 50.9 per 100,000 in New Mexico to 22.4 per 100,000 in Utah.

Excessive alcohol use is the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United States and years of potential life lost in states.

In the 11 states studied -- California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin -- there was a median of 1,600 deaths and 43,000 years of life lost annually due to excessive drinking.

About 70 percent of these deaths and 80 percent of the years of life lost involved working-age adults, the study said.

The findings were published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.