Drinking guidelines ‘make women think they can keep up with men’

NEW alcohol guidelines could give women the false impression that they can drink as much as men, health officials have admitted.

The chief medical officers’ recommendations, published yesterday, say that both men and women should drink no more than 14 units a week – equivalent to around six glasses of wine. This is a change from guidelines that stated that while women should have an upper limit of 14, men could consume up to 21 units a week.

The advice suggests drinkers should have several alcohol-free days a week and warns that no level of regular drinking could be considered “completely safe”.

When draft guidance was published in January, it provoked accusations of “nanny state” scaremongering. But a consultation has found that many respondents, including doctors, fear the setting of equal limits could encourage women to drink more.

A Department of Health document warns of “particular concern” that women could feel encouraged to

binge drink, having been left with a “false impression that they can drink as much as men”. It also says fears were raised that the equal limits were inconsistent with other parts of the guidance, which notes that a lower weight increases the risks from alcohol.

The guidance includes a warning that there is no safe drinking level, but the language has been toned down. It followed anger earlier this year when Prof Dame Sally Davies, England’s chief medical officer, urged people to think about the risk of getting cancer if they were considering a glass of wine.

The recommendations, from all four chief medical officers for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, now state that “for many, alcohol is a part of their social life’, and that the rules are not meant to “prevent those who wish to drink from doing so”.

They make it clear that the risks of drinking are no higher than those of driving a car. But they say it is safest for pregnant women or those trying to conceive not to drink at all.

Britain is the worst Western country for drinking by professional women, research found last year. Miles Beale, of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, said: “These revised guidelines will only serve to confuse.”