No safe level of alcohol consumption, major study concludes
Published 18 Sep 2018
Giving up drinking completely is the only way to avoid the health risks associated with alcohol, according to a major new study.
Alcohol-related problems kill around 7 per cent of men and 2 per cent of women every year, and drinking is the leading cause of death and disability for people aged 15-49.
Though previous research has shown moderate levels of drinking may protect against heart disease, the new study concluded any supposed boosts to health are massively offset by the costs.
The researchers covered 195 countries between 1990 and 2016, and amassed data from hundreds of other studies.
“With the largest collected evidence base to date, our study makes the relationship between health and alcohol clear – drinking causes substantial health loss, in myriad ways, all over the world,” said Dr Max Griswold from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, one of the study’s lead authors.
They estimated that one drink a day increases the risk of developing an alcohol-related diseases including cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis by 0.5 per cent. This shot up to 7 per cent for those having two drinks a day, and 37 per cent for five drinks.
The findings emerge after another report found the drinks sector in the UK relies on people drinking above government limits for nearly 40 per cent of its revenues.
Official guidelines currently state that to keep alcohol health risks low, it is safest to avoid consuming more than 14 units a week – about seven pints of lager – on a regular basis.
However, the UK’s chief medical officers have previously stated that despite this allowance, there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption” – a point that has been reinforced by this study.
“There is a compelling and urgent need to overhaul policies to encourage either lowering people’s levels of alcohol consumption or abstaining entirely,” said Dr Emmanuela Gakidou, who also worked on the new research.
“The myth that one or two drinks a day are good for you is just that – a myth. This study shatters that myth.”
The findings were broadly welcomed by scientists and NGOs as a decisive statement on the impact drinking has on society.
Dr Tony Rao, a psychiatrist at King’s College London who was not involved in the study, commended the effort to unravel the complicated relationship between alcohol and health.
“We can now be more confident that there is no safe limit for alcohol when considering overall health risks,” he said.
Are you shocked by these findings? Do you find yourself ever going over the 14 units a week limit?
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I know some people get ill through drinking too much alcohol but I have been drinking since I was 15 sometimes ridiculous amounts, I have no cancer, diabetes or tuberculosis my liver and kidney's are fine, admittedly at 70 I now only drink once or twice a week but it has had no lasting effect on me, apart from monetary, cost me a fortune over the years. This is not decrying others who do get ill through too much alcohol I am just trying to say that to me it is all in your makeup, your DNA, we are all so different so of course diseases and the way we live affect all of us differently. Sometimes the problem we have in this country is that there is no proper help for people who have a drinking problem, we have the money so why are there no facilities set up by governments to help people with alcohol problems, in the same vein when obese patients finally lose the weight they need to live a healthy life they are left with excess skin to carry around and there is no help from governments to get them into hospitals to remove this excess so they just go back to eating again and it's a vicious circle
I think I will have to give up alcohol after reading this. I sometimes drink up to 2 alcoholic drinks in a month. As there is no save limit it is just not worth destroying my health for.
I am afraid I don't drink at all apart from a sip of sherry during holy communion. Very seldom at Christmas I might have a small glass of sherry when socializing. I do not like alcohol at all, and am not in a position to make comments.
If the the profits and tax on alcohol were not so high - then there would not be so much money spent on advertising and making drinking “acceptable” One of the worst things that ever happened in the making of alcohol was the producing of alcopops - the taste of these drinks, the advertising of these drinks were all aimed at very young ( underage?) drinkers to get them hooked and have an ongoing .”customer” for the rest of their life. Alcohol is a drug and the drink manufacturers started to develop and market it to young people like one and changed the way that they drank eg often getting drunk before even going out the house. The NHS is going to be hit by a wave of young men and women, especially women in the next 10 -15 years with definitely alcohol related disease at a young age eg cirrhosis of the liver in their 30/40s SAD!
I entirely agree with Lorkinn There should be a ban on Alcohol for under 21, as opposed to under 16 as it is today.
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