A new study published in The Lancet aims to measure more precisely the potential harm that drinking to excess can do. Dr James Gill, GP and teaching fellow at Warwick Medical School, comments:-

"SHOCK NEWS - Scientists discover that drinking more alcohol than recommended health limits has been found not to be healthy!

"More seriously - there has been a long running debate about alcohol over the last few years, but this paper adds more weight to the existing guidelines on how much alcohol is considered safe - currently one a glass of wine a day. What is interesting is the quantification as to actually how bad excess drinking should be, by suggesting how much time you are losing by drinking excessively. That might give people a better handle on the nature of looking after themselves.

"There's growing evidence to support health benefits of small amounts of alcohol, and evidence to support the harms of excess of alcohol is clear. But then that’s true for most things in life. Doing exercise is good, too much exercise, and that’s going to cause harm. Perhaps the story here should be about our need to moderate ourselves, rather than portraying alcohol as bad - because it’s not, unless it's taken in excess.

"Today we have an abundance of food, and most of us don’t fear hunger in the same way as previous generations did. Perhaps we need to start fearing our excesses instead?"

13 April 2018

Dr Gill is available for interview today on this topic.

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