Category: Alcohol

NDTV (11 September 2018) A new study published in the journal “Frontiers in Genetics’, that binge drinking affects men and women differently, due to genetics in the different sexes. Read article here…

Kypri, K & McCambridge, J (20 September 2018) British Medical Journal

To strengthen policy responses to harms caused by addiction industries. Link here…

The authors write:  Alcohol, actually ethanol (C₂H₅OH), is a psychoactive molecule ingested by 2.4 billion people globally.1 A central nervous system depressant, it exists naturally and can be produced in people’s homes. Any alcohol consumption confers health risks, including for a range of cancers,2 and any possible cardiovascular benefits are smaller than was previously understood.3 Alcohol harms users through intoxication, organ toxicity, and addiction, which cause an estimated 2.8 million deaths every year.1 In a recent systematic review and meta-analysis the Global Burden of Disease Alcohol Collaborators concluded that the “the level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero.”Greater access to alcohol increases consumption and a wide range of health and social problems in a dose-response manner, and the most effective policies are those that increase the price and reduce the availability of alcohol.4 Because such measures threaten commercial interests they are challenging to adopt, and ineffectual policy responses often prevail.5 Broadening how we think about alcohol policies based on clear recognition that alcohol is a drug could have important benefits for public health.