Alcohol misusers at risk: fatties, ladettes, bar staff, and Saga louts

• Britons are drinking an extra day’s worth of calories every week through alcohol, and triggering higher protection insurance rates.  According to research commissioned by Standard Life with 3,278 adults, the average UK resident is drinking enough lager, wine, cider and spirits to pack on almost 3,000 calories a week. Mick James, protection marketing manager for Standard Life, said: 'The indirect financial impact of a growing nation can affect anything from your private medical insurance to life insurance and critical illness insurance, which can all be far more expensive if you have a body mass index over the average for your height and age. In the worst case scenario you might actually be declined cover.'  He added: 'Someone with a body mass index over 30 is technically obese. We would typically charge an extra 75% for someone’s life insurance with a BMI between 32.6 and 35.' Citywire

• Growing ladette culture means young women who work in offices are twice as likely to drink themselves to death as the rest of the population.  They are apeing the macho office culture and dying from liver disease, cirrhosis and alcohol poisoning, according to figures.  Actresses and female entertainers who are accused by many of promoting ladette behaviour are also among the most likely to die from drink. Alcohol-related deaths have doubled since 1991 - up from 4,144 to 8,386 last year. And experts fear the toll will rise as the 24-hour drinking culture begins to affect the nation's health. Rising levels of binge-drinking have been blamed for high numbers of mouth cancer cases and babies with developmental problems.  The figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that among women, the third most dangerous occupation in terms of risk of dying from alcohol was the office junior.  These are young workers who carry out tasks such as photocopying, delivering mail and data entry.  They are 1.92 times more likely to die from alcohol than the rest of the population.  Daily Mail

• Bar staff are the mostly likely workers to die of alcohol-related problems, figures for England and Wales indicate. The Office for National Statistics data shows bar staff are twice as likely as average to die from conditions such as liver disease or pancreatitis. Least likely to die, according to the figures from 2001 to 2005, were farmers among men and educational assistants among women. Alcohol-related deaths have doubled since 1991. Last year the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed alcohol deaths, which include poisoning but not alcohol-induced accidents, topped 8,000 in 2005, up from just above 4,000 in 1991. The latest study looked at 13,011 deaths among men aged 20 to 64 and 3,655 deaths among women. It showed male bar staff were 2.23 times more liked to die from alcohol than average, while their female colleagues were 2.03 times more likely. BBC News

• A new breed of Saga louts - retired people who drink too much - has been identified by a top psychiatrist, who claims they are second only to twenty-somethings in their appetite for alcohol. Dr Peter Rice says the typical Saga lout is retired, acquired a taste for drinking at home as alcohol prices dropped in the 1970s and 1980s, and is well off enough to enjoy regular evenings knocking back their favourite wines and beers. Rice, a consultant psychiatrist based at Sunnyside Royal Hospital, Montrose, is concerned by the growing number of elderly binge drinkers on his patient list. Rice is so concerned he has flagged up the problem to a Scottish Parliament think-tank, Scotland's Futures Forum, which is investigating ways to reduce alcohol and drug misuse. Recent figures obtained by Scotland on Sunday reveal that in 2001/2 the number of people over the age of 60 admitted to Scottish hospitals with an alcohol-related illness was 8,500. This rose to 10,573 in 2005/6. But the trend among youngsters is down, with 1,733 teenagers aged 15 to 19 admitted in 2001/2, compared with 1,462 in 2005/6.  Scotland on Sunday

Comments

[Libby Ranzetta]

Thanks for the comment Peter. I am not aware of an age breakdown for England and Wales. It's surprising there wasn't one for England in the recent CMO report - given the situation you highlight in Scotland.

[Peter Rice]

On the "saga louts" issue. I used the term (coined by Alan Bennett, I believe) ironically, contrasting the hidden and neglected nature of alcohol problems in older people with the policy focus on young people and public disorder.

I hope the press focus on the term didn't offend people (other than a few newspaper colunmists)and got the message over.

The data can be found on
http://www.alcoholinformation.isdscotland.org/
under Information.
The report is Alcohol Statistics Scotland 2007, published at end of January 2007.

English and Welsh data from the Information Centre aren't broken down by age. Is this data published elsewhere?

Thanks