Most of us, anyway. Me definitely. Although I drink barely 20 units a week, I have not hitherto established an AFD, or alcohol free day ( I am about to instate one: Sunday), but I'm still over the limit. Jeez! Apparently men and women are now restricted to a mere 14 units per week, with three AFDs recommended.
Naturally this is a bit of a head-fuck for me, who, when I was a practising GP used to recommend a much more generous allowance. What happened to the traditional belief that moderate drinking actually conferred a longer life expectancy than being teetotal? Now it seems the only group this applies to is women over 55, and even they should drink no more than 5 units per week in order to gain the benefit.
I think a little common sense needs to be inserted into this argument. Let us examine the advice that has been offered about the use of aspirin as a "primary preventive" against the risk of heart attack and stroke. The term "primary preventive" refers to people who have no particular risk factors flagged up already, like an actual history of those events. Advice on this subject given to GPs for them to pass on to their patients has changed no less than six times in the last 40 years. FYI, the very latest advice is that the risk of catastrophic haemorrhage does outweigh its benefits, but watch this space. That advice could change tomorrow.
Where does that leave us vis a vis alcohol? Will these latest guidelines be subject to review as more research comes in? I wouldn't be surprised. To me this new advice is unnecessarily draconian. Yes, excessive alcohol intake is associated with an increased cancer risk, although as we all know, the other problems that alcoholism causes, not just to the drinker but to their families and society as a whole is far more significant. But is moderate alcohol intake that injurious to our health? I just can't accept it. Not yet.
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