NHMRC revised guidelines on alcohol consumption
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) will be issuing new guidelines on alcohol consumption. They are much stricter than the previous guidelines issued in 2001 and amount to a warning that it is time for many Australians to change their way of life.
The former guidelines said the “low-risk” drinking level for men wanting to avoid harm in the long term was up to four drinks a day, and for women two, while seven or more drinks a day for men, and five for women, was deemed “high-risk”. But the new guidelines will revise this downwards. Healthy men and women are advised that “drinking no more than two standard drinks on any day reduces the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury”.
A second guideline for men and women on “single-occasion drinking”, written in response to community concern about binge drinking, adds that “drinking no more than four standard drinks … reduces the risk of alcohol-related injury”.
It has long been known that excessive consumption can be injurious, but it is only in recent years that researchers have uncovered the extent of the risk posed by just a few drinks. Last year, for instance, the Cancer Institute NSW concluded after an extensive analysis of worldwide research that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption and even two drinks a day pose a risk. The institute says alcohol is particularly linked to cancer of the upper aero-digestive tract, breast, colorectal, liver and stomach.
The guidelines are currently in draft form and have not yet been issued as they will be reviewed by the council of the NHMRC in February. If approved, they will be released within the next few weeks.
