Weaker drinks add to consumption – study

Labelling alcohol as lower strength could encourage people to drink more, a study suggests.

A survey of wine and beer drinkers found the total amount they consumed increased as the label on the bottle indicated successively lower alcohol strength.

Some 264 weekly wine and beer drinkers from England were split into three groups to taste test drinks in a laboratory designed to mimic a bar environment for the Department of Health-funded study.

The groups tested drinks labelled “super low” and “4%ABV” (alcohol by volume) for wine or “1%ABV” for beer, “low” and “8%ABV” for wine or “3%ABV” for beer, and bottles without any description of strength other than “12.9%ABV” for wine or “4.2%ABV” for beer.

The study found the total amount of drink consumed increased as the label on the drink indicated successively lower alcohol strength.

The mean consumption of drinks labelled “super low” was 214ml, compared with 177ml for the unlabelled drinks.

Individual differences in drinking patterns and socio-demographic indicators did not affect the results.

The Department of Health and Social Care has opened up a public consultation on the descriptions used for low alcohol products so that people can make “informed choices” following the recent growth of the sector.

Professor Theresa Marteau, senior author and director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, said: “Labelling lower strength alcohol may sound like a good idea if it encourages people to switch drinks, but our study suggests it may paradoxically encourage people to drink more.”

Dr Milica Vasiljevic, from the University of Cambridge, said: “For lower strength alcohol products to reduce consumption, consumers will need to select them in place of equal volumes of higher strength products.

“But what if the lower strength products enable people to feel they can consume more?”

Earlier this year a separate study found lower strength wine and beer could lead to increased alcohol consumption because supermarkets and producers are advertising them as an alternative to soft drinks.

The increasing availability of lower strength products, which are more likely to be marketed as suitable for drinking on any occasion or even every day, may simply increase the amount of alcohol people consume, researchers led by the University of Cambridge have concluded.