Putin waltzes off with bride

RUSSIAN’S macho President Vladimir Putin put on his dancing shoes at the wedding of the Austrian foreign minister yesterday.

Putin danced with the bride, Karin Kneissl, who married businessman Wolfgang Meilinger at the ceremony in a vineyard in Styria state. MORE than 50 people a day are being treated in hospital for alcoholrelated liver disease in a booze crisis fuelled by stay-at-home drinkers.

Alarming figures from NHS Digital show the number of patients in England has soared 57 per cent in 12 years.

Some 20,751 suffered the potentially deadly condition in the year to March 31, 2017 – up from 13,201 in 2004-5.

One in three were women and more than 200 were under the age of 30.

The British Liver Trust said the country faces a “liver disease epidemic” and blamed it on more people knocking back cheap booze in their own homes.

Vanessa Hebditch, the charity’s director of policy, said: “We are still going out, but it’s also now quite normal to have a drink while cooking or watching TV, unlike a generation ago.

HARMFUL

“Alcohol has become increasingly acceptable and affordable. Filling your supermarket trolley with wine and drinking at home has become normalised. These hidden drinks add up and increase the overall amount that many of us are consuming on a daily basis.

“The dramatic rise in alcohol-related liver disease (ARLD) demonstrates the epidemic the UK is facing.

“We urgently need to address the UK’s drinking culture or lives will be lost and the costs to the NHS will be enormous.”

Research shows around one in five Brits drink harmful levels of alcohol.

ARLD has three main stages – alcoholic fatty liver disease, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis, when the liver is significantly scarred and is generally not reversible. A person with alcohol-related cirrhosis who doesn’t stop drinking has a less than 50 per cent chance of living beyond five years.

Alcohol misuse is already costing the NHS an estimated £3.5billion a year and is the biggest risk factor for death, illhealth and disability among 15 to 49-year-olds in the UK.

The British Liver Trust wants a minimum price for units of alcohol in a bid to reduce levels of harmful drinking.

Ms Hebditch added: “It is possible to buy a three-litre bottle of cider containing the equivalent of 22 shots of vodka for £3.50. The Government should act to address this through taxation, such as by creating a minimum unit price. They should also introduce stronger controls

estimated annual cost to the NHS of alcohol related disease