Alcohol has ‘no healthy upside’ at all, study finds
A DOCTOR has spoken of the ‘tidal wave’ of Irish women dying from alcoholrelated issues, as health professionals and the drinks industry react to a new study into global alcohol consumption. Professor Frank Murray, liver specialist at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital and chair of Alcohol Health Alliance, said the Global Burden of Disease Study was correct in stating there were no safe levels of alcohol consumption.
Averaging 3.1 drinks a day, Irish women rank seventh globally when it comes to the highest daily levels of alcohol consumption, according to the study led by Dr Max Griswold from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
The study, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, also showed there were 990 alcoholrelated deaths among women in Ireland in 2016, while alcohol was linked to 1,800 deaths among men that same year.
Professor Murray said the current levels of alcohol consumption by women were down to targeted marketing and the perpetuation of the notion of ‘wine o’clock’.
‘We have become huge wine consumers over the last couple of decades because it’s become relatively cheaper and it’s been massively marketed, particularly at women,’ he said on RTÉ’s Today with Miriam O’Callaghan.
‘So women haven’t started drinking alcohol because they’ve had an intellectual change – they’ve started drinking alcohol because it’s sold to them, it’s marketed to them.’
Professor Murray said there are no health benefits to drinking alcohol, despite some claims that there might be, which are often reported in the media. ‘There is no reason to drink alcohol for the benefit of our health. Now, there are other reasons for why we choose to drink alcohol, of course, and I’m not making an argument against the consumption of alcohol.’
But he adds there should be Governmental support, calling for the long-debated Public Health (Alcohol) Bill to be enacted.
‘The... Bill is a marvellous piece of legislation which unfortunately has been very slow at getting through the House of the Oireachtas,’ Professor Murray said.
Irish Daily Mail columnist Brenda Power has argued that people ‘should be treated like adults’, and that while there may be no health benefits to alcohol consumption, there are other, social, benefits.
‘Nobody disputes that we have a difficult, dysfunctional relationship with alcohol in this country,’ said Ms Power.
‘But when we are bombarded with genuinely conflicting evidence, you can’t blame people for saying I’m just going to open a bottle of wine. I think health authorities have to trust people [and] accept that there are benefits to alcohol.
‘OK, there are not necessarily health benefits if you over-indulge but there are social and emotional benefits to socialising, basically, with alcohol.’
‘I think we need to be treated like adults and there’s no point in saying forget about drinking [or] don’t drink – that’s never going to happen. What you need to be given is comprehensive and honest information about how much really is safe.’
The Alcohol and Beverage Federation of Ireland said its members adhere to strict advertising guidelines.
‘Since 2001, alcohol consumption has fallen by 23.3%,’ the organisation said in a statement. ‘This decline has occurred in the absence of the draconian measures proposed in the Alcohol Bill and shows that real and tangible progress is being made on tackling alcohol consumption and misuse.’
The head of the Irish Whiskey Association, a member of the ABFI, said: ‘The... study is one of a number of reports published in recent weeks and months outlining the pros and cons of drinking. With such a volume of conflicting evidence, it is hardly surprising that people might be confused about what is a safe level of drinking.
‘It suggests that there is no safe level of drinking, which contradicts the findings of other scientific studies which have found that moderate consumption can result in improved health outcomes.’
The Global Burden of Disease Study, published in the Lancet medical journal, found the women of the Ukraine consume the highest daily levels of alcohol. In terms of male alcohol consumption, the highest average of daily drinking was in Romania.
‘Tidal wave of Irish women dying’ ‘We should be treated as adults’