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Research suggests only drinking half a unit of alcohol a day


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An Oxford University report says that cutting alcohol consumption to just half a unit, per person, per day could save 4,600 lives in England and lead to widespread health benefits.

 

That's approximately a quarter of a pint of beer or a quarter of a glass of wine a day. Much less than the current government guidelines.

 

Hands up all those who are going to adopt these new recommendations.

 

I've just drank my allowance and then some in one glass of whiskey.

 

These reports are pointless and a waste of money. If the government ever enforced these limits it wouldn't save 4,600 lives, double that amount would end up topping themselves.

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Well, I've just read through the research twice now, and fail to see how it has been contextualised for other things that are contributory to or causative of the same diseases, such as diet and exercise.

 

It's quite likely that it simply proves that people who hardly drink are the same people that hardly eat.

 

It's a shame that the last episode of More Or Less on R4 was last Friday, and Ben Goldacre has stopped writing and blogging so regularly.

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An Oxford University report says that cutting alcohol consumption to just half a unit, per person, per day could save 4,600 lives in England and lead to widespread health benefits.

 

That's approximately a quarter of a pint of beer or a quarter of a glass of wine a day. Much less than the current government guidelines.

 

Hands up all those who are going to adopt these new recommendations.

 

 

Never trust a man who doesn't drink.......

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There's a good chance the research was sponsered by the British Heart Foundation, since the lead author works for them.

 

Authors were being paid by both The British Heart Foundation and the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.

 

My reading of it seemed to suggest that this massive reduction of average intake would save or delay 3% (or due to confidence limits ... maybe as low as 1.5%) of partially alcohol related deaths.

 

When the government originally looked at recommending units of intake, they were aware of the risks involved in recommending limits that were so far below the norm that people just ignore them.

The current recommendations have very little scientific justification, but are at a level where some people think they can use them as personal guidelines.

 

I believe that this paper is largely academic, based on sets of data that have debatable value on one hand (household questionnaires on average consumption) and limited causal relationship on the other.

 

It does have value in looking at the overall situation, but completely falls down when the authors recommend the government to adopt this intake of 5g/day as their guideline.

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