Reducing the harms of alcohol in the UK

doi:10.1136/bmj.39426.523715.80

BMJ 2007;335:1271-1272 (22 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.39426.523715.80

Editorials

Reducing the harms of alcohol in the UK

Successful policies have worked elsewhere, so delays in implementingthem are costing lives

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Alcohol causes major health problems—the Cabinet Officereported up to 150 000 hospital admissions and 15 000-22 000deaths overall in 2003.¹ Between 1991 and 2005, deaths directlyattributed to alcohol almost doubled.² More people are dyingfrom alcohol related causes than from breast cancer, cervicalcancer, and infection with methicillin resistant Staphylococcusaureus combined. Furthermore, the recent report from the WorldCancer Research fund confirmed that even drinking alcohol withinso called "safe limits" increases the risk of cancer of thebreast and upper gastrointestinal tract.³

The cultural and sociological factors that determine our patternsof drinking may date back thousands of years.⁴ As such, theLicensing Act 2005 was always unlikely to transform the cultureof feast drinking to that of a Mediterranean society. Similarly,other options to reduce harm favoured by government and thealcohol industry—education and public information—don’tseem to change drinking behaviour or to reduce . . . [Full text of this article]

Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, Nick Sheron, hepatologist

¹ Medical School, Southampton University Hospital, Southampton SO16 6YD

ian.gilmore@rcplondon.ac.uk

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