Posted on 01/19/2023 6:46:05 AM PST by billorites
In Canada, it should be Dry January all year round, according to new national recommendations that say zero alcohol is the only risk-free approach.
If you must drink at all, two drinks maximum each week is deemed low-risk by the government-backed guidance.
The advice is a steep drop from the previous recommendation, published in 2011.
Those guidelines allowed a maximum of 10 drinks a week for women and 15 drinks for men.
The new report, funded by Health Canada, also suggested mandatory warning labels for all alcoholic beverages.
"The main message from this new guidance is that any amount of alcohol is not good for your health," said Erin Hobin, a senior scientist with Public Health Ontario and a member of the expert panel that developed the guidelines. "And if you drink, less is better."
The nearly 90-page report, from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA), details a variety of health risks associated with what was previously considered low alcohol consumption.
According to the CCSA, any more than two standard drinks - each the equivalent of a 12-ounce (341ml; 0.6 pints) serving of 5 percent alcohol beer or a five-ounce (142ml; 0.26 pints) glass of 12 percent alcohol wine - brings an increase in negative outcomes, including breast and colon cancer.
It may be a rude awakening for the roughly 80 percent of Canadian adults who drink.
"The new guidance is maybe a bit shocking," Dr Hobin said. "I think it's very new information for the public that at three standard drinks per week, the risk for head and neck cancers increases by 15 percent, and further increases with every additional drink.
"Three standard drinks per week to most Canadians wouldn't be considered a large amount of alcohol," she added.
Canadian experts say the drastic change in guidance - from nearly two drinks per day to two per week - is the result of better research over time.
"The data across the board is improving in terms of how and what we're measuring," said Jacob Shelley, a professor of health and law at Western University. How Canada compares with Australia, US and UK
The new recommendations put the country out of step with several other Western nations. New Zealand's national guidance recommends no more than 10 standard drinks per week for women and no more than 15 per week for men. Australia's national guidance, published in 2020, recommends a maximum of 10 standard drinks a week and France suggests the same.
The US recommends no more than two drinks a day for men and one for women, while the UK suggests no more than 14 "units" of alcohol - around six glasses of wine, or pints of beer - per week.
But Canada is not a total outlier. As of 2015, the Netherlands' health council recommended that people abstained from alcohol altogether, or drink no more than one standard drink each day.
It's still an open question whether Canadians - who love their beer almost as much as they love hockey - will be convinced to drink less because of this guidance.
According to the Global Drug Survey, in drinking frequency, Canada does not rank in the top 10 countries globally, falling below the global average. But on the measure of "feeling drunk", Canada jumped to the sixth spot, just behind the US and the UK.
"Alcohol is largely a part of our culture in Canada, it's normalised, it's largely socially acceptable," Dr Hobin said. "You'll see alcohol at birthdays, weddings or when you're watching Hockey Night in Canada on a Saturday night", she said, referring to the beloved weekly sports programme.
CCSA scientists and other experts say that mandatory labelling of all alcoholic beverages with health warnings, now common practice for cigarettes, is a necessary first step.
In 2017, in one of the only real-world experiments to date of cancer warning labels on alcohol beverages, Dr Hobin studied the effects of such warnings at liquor stores in Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon. The labels were found to decrease per capita alcohol sales by 7 percent compared to control sites in Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
Still, mandating nationwide labelling would require sign-off from Health Canada.
In a statement to the BBC, the agency thanked the CCSA for its work, saying alcohol use presents "serious and complex public health and safety issues". But it would not comment on adding health warnings to Canadians' drinks.
Alcohol cuts into their state sanctioned drug business.
You’ll own nothing and do nothing and like it ,LOL
Didn’t we try that already?............................
Make no mistake, there is already a war on alcohol. The ultimate goal is to raise the taxes on it by huge amounts.
People in the left are the new prudes.
They tried taxing alcohol so no one could afford it so no it’s time for prohibition
There are too many people in government that are underworked and need to find real jobs.
Oh wait , there won’t be enough alcohol in the world for us and Klaus Schwab’s World Government so we have to give it up
Yes, but think about all the libs who, when confronted with historical evidence that socialism eventually fails, will assure you that the next time it’s tried, they will get it right.
The story is that “moderate drinkers” lived longer. Now it’s “moderate drinkers” were more affluent, so they looked after themselves and had other advantages, so of course they lived longer, and alcohol is a poison. Who knows what the next story will be?
Really? I'd need a minimum of 5 drinks to hit that.
Really? I'd need a minimum of 5 drinks to hit that.
Leftists aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. Especially this generation of them.
“To a Liberal, history started at breakfast this morning.”
Obviously she has been to Florida.
In Florida if you have two drinks a week you are probably dead.
5.56mm
Farming grain and grapes — whatever — is a direct cause of “climate change”. Get with the program, AU40! This is a secular religion we’re talking about here. Cheers!
How are you supposed to go curling?
IF YOU DRINK YOU ARE GONNA DIE!
if you don’t drink you’re gonna die
SO - Why die thirsty!?
In some countries it is customary to drink wine with meals. This advice sounds like ethnic prejudice--Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism.
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