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U.K.: NHS to lower alcohol consumption guidelines

U.K.: NHS to lower alcohol consumption guideline

Source: The Spirits Business

by Annie Hayes

30th June, 2015

 

A “growing body” of research linking alcohol to cancer has prompted the NHS to lower alcohol consumption guidelines in the UK.

 

A Department of Health spokesperson confirmed the guidelines were being reviewed and would be published later this year, after the most recent study by a professor at University College London revealed that abiding by the current recommendations could cause “dangerous inflammation”.

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies will assess the recommended daily and weekly units of alcohol for men and women, which were first set in 1987.

Current NHS guidelines advice men to consume no more than three to four units per day, and women no more than two to three units.

The weekly limits were set in 1995 and state that men should not exceed 21 units while women should not drink more than 14.

However, professor of herpetology Rajiv Jalan recently carried out a study with a set of male twins who each drank within recommended government limits for a month; one twin drank his 21 units in one weekly sitting while the other drank three units per day.

After the experiment, Jalan told The Mirror that both showed “an inflammatory response”, leading him to believe the safe limit is “almost certainly less than it is stated at the moment”.

Earlier this year, health experts in Scotland called for tighter restrictions on alcohol advertising in order to stem a “culture of excess”.