Alcohol guidelines: Failed to change behaviour

9^th January 2012 - Guidelines aimed at helping people drink within sensible limits need to be reviewed, according to a new report, which concludes there is little evidence that the current system has changed the behaviour of drinkers.

MPs on the Science and Technology Committee have urged the government to focus greater efforts on helping people understand the advice and apply it to their own drinking patterns.

The report says, pending a thorough review of the evidence on alcohol and health, current alcohol limits should be frozen and the benefits of having at least two alcohol free days each week should be stressed.

That's the limit

The first 'sensible limits' for drinking were issued in 1987 and defined as 21 units of alcohol a week for men and 14 for women.

During the following years scientific evidence emerged suggesting that a small daily consumption of alcohol could cut the risk of heart disease. This persuaded the government to switch from weekly to daily limits in the official advice.

These new guidelines recommended that men should not regularly drink more than three to four units a day, and women two to three units.

Reviewing the evidence

The Science and Technology Committee took evidence from a wide range of parties, including medical groups, alcohol campaigners and the drinks trade.

Its report expresses surprise that the guidelines have not been reviewed since the mid-1990s, and urges health departments throughout the UK to establish a working group to look again at the evidence on alcohol and health risks and report back on whether the guidelines should be changed.

Andrew Miller MP, chair of the Committee, said in a statement: "Alcohol guidelines are a crucial tool for Government in its effort to combat excessive and problematic drinking. It is vital that they are up-to-date and that people know how to use them."

In the meantime, MPs have stopped short of recommending significant changes to official advice and said that drinkers should be encouraged to take 48 hour alcohol breaks each week to give their bodies time to recover.

Getting the message across

The report is critical, though, about how effective the guidelines have been at persuading people to drink within sensible limits. While public awareness of the existence of guidelines was high, a deeper understanding of how much people should be drinking and of what a unit of alcohol looked like was lacking, it concluded.

Looking further ahead, the Committee says a new review should examine more effective ways of getting sensible drinking messages across and whether new advice should also include warnings about the specific risks of binge drinking.

Drinking and heart health

MPs concluded that there was a lack of consensus about the role of alcohol in helping to prevent cardiovascular disease. The MPs write: "We are sceptical about using the purported health benefits of alcohol as a basis for daily guidelines for the adult population, particularly as it is clear that any protective effects would only apply to men over 40 years and post-menopausal women."

The report also calls on the government to ensure the drinks industry honours a deal to ensure that over 80% of alcoholic products on shelves will have labels with alcoholic unit content and the drinking guidelines by 2013.