Has DH guidance on sensible drinking changed? New messages suggest an increase

Health Challenge England outlines how the Department of Health will take forward its Choosing Health agenda.  For alcohol, the document talks about DH's work with the alcohol industry on the Producers' Fund (ie the Drinkaware Trust), labelling (see below) and campaigns to promote sensible drinking.

The following format for drinks labels has gone into market research testing:

• Standardised unit icon
• Chief Medical Officer Recommends/Dept of Health recommends men should not regularly drink more than three to four units a day and women should not regularly drink more than two to three units a day (and, in order to put this information into context for the consumer, showing the relationship against these recommended daily guidelines to the unit content of the product/bottle)
• Additional health message
• Drinkaware website address

Tony Goodall, Alcohol Strategy Lead for Leeds, points out that this message on recommended limits - which is also found in the new Know Your Limits materials - is a change from the old message, which also pushed drink free days.  He says:

There is no longer any mention of drink free days – so my assumption is that they are saying the weekly guidelines would be 21 and 28 units respectively – rather than the accepted 14 and 21.  This represents a 50% increase for women!!  This is certainly a simpler message – but is it really the one that we should be promoting??  Has there been agreement from the health community – or is this what the drinks industry is happy with??

Info on receommended limits from the Institute of Alcohol Studies factsheet What is Problem Drinking?

Until 1995, the recommended “sensible limits” of regular consumption were no more than 21 units of alcohol per week for men and no more than 14 units per week for women. There was also guidance on hazardous and definitely harmful levels of consumption. (1 unit being 1 standard drink i.e. 1/2 pint ordinary strength beer; a single measure of spirits; a standard glass of wine)

In December 1995, following a Government review of the “sensible drinking” message, the guidance was changed from weekly to daily limits - no more than 3-4 units per day for men, and no more than 2-3 units per day for women, with the qualification that regular consumption of 4 units a day for men and 3 units for women was not recommended on health grounds.

That qualification is missing from the new message.  Perhaps Tony Goodall is right.

Comments

[Rich]

I am glad that the drinks industry has used it's undoubtedly benevolent & disinterested influence to persuade the bureaucrats at the Department of Health to clarify & liberlise the guidance on low-risk drinking, thereby ending more than 10 years of confusion that resulted from their original intervention.

[David]

Dear Libby

Thanks for the podcast. I’m confused about the concern raised by an apparent dropping of alcohol free days as my reading of the 1995 guidelines is that they didn’t include any such a provision. This was introduced sometime after and if anyone knows by whom I would be grateful for this information. For example the report states

“Drink Free Days
9.9 Excessive drinking can adversely affect the normal physiological function of tissues which then need time to recover fully. After an episode of heavy drinking it is advisable therefore to refrain from drinking for 48 hours to allow this. Breaks in consumption are only a short term measure and people whose pattern of drinking places them at significant risk should seek professional advice. Such breaks in consumption are not required on health grounds for people drinking at low risk levels of daily consumption.”
.

See
http://www.portmangroup.org.uk/uploaded_files/documents/35_74_Sensibledrinking.pdf

Very best wishes

David