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.
Same government hacks who demand a jab subscription for the serfs.
Totalitarians seek to squeeze all the joy out of life. They like grey and dull for everyone except themselves.
The Canucks I know will just laugh in their faces. Those guys can drink anyone under the table!
Canada must not have a very strong ‘Alcohol Lobby.’
They need to follow the guidelines of the ‘Wisconsin Tavern League’ which shows you how to get customers to pay to imbibe in the MOST alcohol each day as humanly possible! ;)
“Founded in 1935, the Tavern League of Wisconsin is the largest trade association in the United States to exclusively represent the interests of licensed beverage retailers.”
P.S. Take off, ya Hoser! ;)
“My body my choice!”
You think you men have it tough? Like I say to my kids: “I quit drinking and smoking for FOUR WHOLE MONTHS when I was pregnant with you!”
*SMIRK* - Just kidding. That’s an old one-liner from Roseanne. ;)
That just leaves more for the rest of us!
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”― C. S. Lewis
Exactly. They just can't WAIT to have us all shivering in the dark with no heat or electricity from fossil fuels, driving nowhere unless we're in an electric deathtrap, and starving us out - also due to fossil fuels not being used for crop fertilizer.
Deny us alcohol? LOL! Didn't Mother Government already try that once upon a time? It lasted 13 years and from what I've read, people still found a way to consume alcohol. ;)
You can see where this is headed…
2011 - two drinks per day
2023 - two per per week
2035 - two drinks per month
2047 - two drinks per year
2059 - two drinks per decade
2071 - two drinks per lifetime
Who needs a chocolate ration?
The American Medical Association “allows” 1 drink per DAY for women and 2 drinks per day for men. That’s the power of lobbying! That being said before health department apparatchiks chimed in, alcohol IS a Group 1 carcinogen because it breaks down into acetaldehyde. Then gain, so does cannabis smoke but Trudeau is making too much tax revenue from that.
2 glasses of red wine/sangria for 3+ decades at dinner and my two cups of coffee in the morning has helped me to get to age 84!
$crew the Health Nazis and Gorebull Warming Nazis!
The US government has driven me to two drinks per day. 😏
Saw a Dutch guy once that could have kept up with anyone - terrible condition, leads to massive bar tabs.
Finally, a problem not caused by Climate Change.
Canada needs to outlaw alcohol consumption by Caucasians otherwise racist.
These are the problems of a first world nation and they waste people’s tax dollars on this crap.
That’s funny.
2-fiths per day... LOL
😅
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