American drinking habits are shifting sharply, and Catholic adults now stand at the center of the change. A Gallup report authored by analyst Frank Newport found that 55% of Catholic adults in the United States report drinking alcohol, a record low.

That figure is far below the 79% recorded from 2002 through 2004. During the same period, the self reported drinking rate among Protestants remained flat at 54%, erasing a historical gap in which Catholics were much more likely to report drinking.

Newport described a significant decline among people with no religious identity and a particularly notable drop among Catholics. Still, experts cautioned against treating one subgroup result as definitive proof of a lasting cultural shift.

Dr. Joshua Gowin, an associate professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, studies alcohol’s effects on the brain. He noted that polling figures based on self reported behavior can fluctuate because of sampling.

“There's definitely a general pattern of alcohol use decreasing across groups,” Gowin told Fox News Digital. His assessment placed the Catholic finding within a wider decline rather than presenting it as an isolated religious phenomenon.

“As far as the subgroups go, it wasn't clear or necessarily compelling to me that one group was showing a broad trend that wasn't reflected in the other groups,” he went on.

Gowin said the finding appeared to rest heavily on one result. “It seemed like really only one data point showed that effect ... which made me a little skeptical that this is a broader phenomenon versus a single survey sample.”

Despite the limits of tracking particular religious populations, researchers agree that broader health and social trends are changing alcohol consumption. Gallup found that a majority of Americans now regard moderate drinking, defined as one or two drinks each day, as bad for their health.

That concern crosses religious categories. In the latest polling, 52% of Catholics said moderate alcohol use is bad for health, compared with 56% of adults with no religious affiliation and 48% of Protestants.

Gowin said public attitudes have changed alongside decades of neuroscience and medical research. Earlier debate weighed possible benefits of alcohol against dangers that researchers already recognized.

“Twenty years ago, there was still kind of a push and pull between some benefits of alcohol and then some things that even then we knew were potentially harmful,” he said. “It's not like the serious problems have gone away.”

The direction of the evidence has become clearer, according to Gowin. “Over time, we've gotten a lot more clarity on the things that are bad for our health ... the balance has just shifted more in favor of the evidence for negative health effects.”

Large neuroimaging studies now consistently associate higher alcohol consumption with reduced brain volume, Gowin noted. That research has helped reinforce health warnings as the public increasingly questions whether moderate drinking is harmless.

Researchers also point to changes in social behavior and loneliness when considering shifting consumption patterns. Much of the nation’s alcohol consumption has historically taken place in groups, so changes in how people gather may be influencing how often they drink.

Lower overall drinking prevalence does not mean that severe alcohol problems have disappeared. Gowin described a troubling contrast between the shrinking share of adults who drink and the number of deaths connected to alcohol.

“One of the things that is a bit of a contradiction ... is that although the overall prevalence among all adults is down for the number of drinkers, there is actually a larger number of alcohol-related deaths in the past few years,” Gowin noted.

The Gallup figures therefore capture two developments at once. Fewer Catholic adults report drinking, while Americans across religious groups increasingly view moderate consumption as harmful, even as serious alcohol consequences remain.