alcohol

Key points

• Just under 2m adults in Wales drink alcohol, averaging 610 units a year, costing £607
• Almost three quarters them drink within the UK guidelines of 14 units a week
• Nevertheless around 777 deaths and 35,637 hospital admissions are directly caused by alcohol
• Blood pressure accounts for 13,000 hospital admissions, mental health problems 9,000, liver disease 4,000 and cancer 2,000
• Around 24% of drinkers drink at the potentially hazardous level of between 14 and 50 units a week for men and 14 to 35 units for women
• And 4% of drinkers exceed these hazardous levels, practically guaranteeing harm
• Hazardous and harmful drinkers together make up 28% of the drinking population, but consume 75% of alcohol units
• The most deprived tend to drink less than average but suffer more, experiencing three times as many deaths as the best off
• Moderate drinkers buy less than a quarter of their alcohol for under 50p a unit, while harmful drinkers buy almost a half
• More units of off-trade wine are sold below 50p a unit than any other beverage
• Modelling suggests harmful drinkers would see the biggest change if a 50p minimum unit price is introduced, with a 7% reduction in the units they consume, the equivalent of 110 large beers a year, and a £48 increase rise in yearly spending
• The impact on moderate drinkers would be minimal, with an estimated reduction in annual consumption of 2.4 units, the amount in one large beer, and an increased annual spending of £3
• For every 100,000 harmful drinkers the model suggests a 50p minimum unit price would avoid 56 deaths and 688 hospital admissions each year
• Over two-thirds of the lives saved would be those of harmful drinkers

Source: http://gov.wales/docs/caecd/research/2017/171129-comparative-impact-minimum-unit-pricing-taxation-policies-interim-en.pdf

The alcohol industry’s Portman Group (PG) is using a study it co-funded to resist calls for providing health information on alcoholic drink labels. Here’s a look at what the study actually says.

[Read more…] about Fact-check: Support for alcohol health labelling

Our life expectancy is lower if we drink more than 125ml of alcohol a week, according to new research.

“Drinking alcohol at levels which were believed to be safe is actually linked with lower life expectancy and several adverse health outcomes,” says Dr Dan Blazer from Duke University, a co-author of the Lancet study.

The decline in life expectancy was found to start slightly below the UK’s guideline maximum amount of 140ml, or 14 UK units, a week. Guideline maximums in Italy, Portugal and Spain are almost 50% higher, while the US one for men is nearly double.

The lives of those who drank 125-250ml a week were shorter by around six months over the age of 40. Those who drank 250-438ml lived between one and two years less, while drinking beyond the top end of the range typically cut lifetimes by between four and five years.

It strengthens evidence, the authors say, that “total cardiovascular disease risk is actually comprised of several distinct and opposite dose–response curves rather than a single J-shaped association”.

Higher alcohol consumption was associated with a higher risk of stroke, heart failure, fatal hypertensive disease, and fatal aortic aneurysm, with no thresholds below which lower alcohol consumption stopped reducing risk (see chart).

But higher consumption was also associated with a lower risk of non-fatal heart attacks, or “myocardial infarctions”. The authors say, however, that the increased risk of having fatal heart problems means we are likely to lose years of life if we were to drink alcohol to ward off non-fatal problems.

“The key message of this research for public health is that, if you already drink alcohol, drinking less may help you live longer and lower your risk of several cardiovascular conditions,” said Dr Angela Wood, lead author of the study from Cambridge University.

Non-drinkers were excluded from the study, because we often stop drinking when we develop health problems, so skewing the numbers. The study also excluded people with pre-existing heart conditions. ■

Alcohol drinking is linked to 57% of cases of early-onset dementia, according to a new study, far more than most experts had guessed.

“Our findings suggest that the burden of dementia attributable to alcohol use disorders is much larger than previously thought,” says lead author Dr Michaël Schwarzinger of the Translational Health Economics Network.

“While it is widely recognised that heavy drinking can have detrimental physical effects, we have not tended to think about these in terms of brain functioning. This research suggests we should focus more of our attention in that direction,” says James Nicholls of Alcohol Research UK.

Alcohol use disorders were associated with three-times the risk of all types of dementia, making it the strongest modifiable risk factor for dementia onset. The paper suggests reducing dementia cases by having screening, interventions and treatment for heavy drinking.

The alcohol-dementia link may be stronger even than this study implies because alcohol problems are underdiagnosed. The French study made the link by looking at diagnoses of mental and behavioural disorders attributed to alcohol use or and alcohol-related liver disease.

The finding is “immensely important” according to Professor Clive Ballard of the University of Exeter. “We should move forward with clear public health messages about the relationship between both alcohol use disorders and alcohol consumption, respectively, and dementia.”

“The link between dementia and alcohol use disorders needs further research, but is likely a result of alcohol leading to permanent structural and functional brain damage,” says Dr Schwarzinger. He also recommends cutting availability, increasing tax and banning advertising.

Of the 57,000 early onset dementia cases examined, 18% came alongside a diagnosis of alcohol use disorder, in addition to the 39% of cases which were already recognised as being alcohol-related. Early onset dementia is dementia diagnosed before we are 65.

The association between heavy drinking and dementia onset has been poorly measured. This is a reason why it was not included in the modifiable risk factors included in the Lancet commission on dementia prevention last year, says Dr Schwarzinger.

Drinking consistently less than 14 UK units (140ml) of alcohol a week is reckoned to mean dementia risk is low. Alcohol is not a medicine or health tonic. ■

Estonia has received plaudits from a pan-European coalition for its “courage and persistence” in focusing the bloc’s attention on reducing alcohol harm during its six months holding the rotating EU presidency.

The Baltic state helped convince EU members to request: a new EU alcohol strategy; monitoring and evaluation of current measures on online advertising; a framework for a new joint action plan; more research on cross-border trade; and better provisions for alcohol labelling by the end of 2019.

“It is high time for European consumers to finally be told what is in their drinks,” said Mariann Skar, head of the European Alcohol Policy Alliance. “Having heard some disturbing rumours about QR codes, we are very concerned that the industry is taking us all for fools.”

But it is not certain the European Commission will heed the request raised during the Estonian presidency, with previous requests meeting with “hesitancy”, according to Lauri Beekmann, who leads the Nordic Alcohol and Drug Policy Network.

Estonia’s six-month presidency ends this month. Next year it will be held by Bulgaria and then Austria. ■