Healthy drinking: Health experts warn Australians on alcohol intake

At first glance, the new drinking guidelines reveal bad news for boozers. But let’s look at the fineprint.

Health experts have tightened their limits for healthy drinking. Picture: Supplied

How much booze can you drink while minimising serious health impacts? For lovers of a tipple, the answer is not as grim as you might think.

The National Health and Medical Research Council on Monday released its first revised guidelines in a decade on safer drinking levels.

At first glance, the news is bad for boozers: The old “two standard drinks a day” advice put forward in 2009 has been altered to 10 tipples a week; an apparent cut in the recommended weekly measure.

However, the fine print reveals a different picture and one not so likely to throw a dampener on looming festive celebrations.

The revised 10 drinks a week advice is not only very conservative but it is based on average drinking patterns. This is how the draft NHMRC report puts it: “Current evidence indicates that Australian adults who consume alcohol do so on average three days per week.

“Given this frequency of alcohol consumption, 10 standard drinks per week corresponds to a 1 in 100 risk of dying from alcohol-related disease or injury for men and women.”

However, if you enjoy a drop every day, spreading your consumption evenly over a week, you can achieve the same low risk factor -1 per cent – and drink a whole lot more. Up to 20.2 standard drinks per week for men and 15.3 for women, in fact.

If 1 per cent is too high a risk for your liking, the council’s best advice is by spreading your consumption over a week you can achieve a one-in-one-thousand risk level – .1 per cent – while still downing 18.5 standard drinks per week (for men) and 14 (for women).

None of this detail is revealed in the NHMRC’s press release; instead you’ll find it 30 pages into its accompanying full report, Draft Australian Guidelines to Reduce Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol.

The alcohol industry believes the NHMRC is at risk of confusing drinkers and suggests the headline focus on the “10 drinks” guideline is overly simplistic.

“For those who choose to drink, these draft guidelines provide a complicated picture to understand how to manage your long-term risk,” said Andrew Wilsmore, chief executive of Alcohol Beverages Australia.

He said the “only simple thing” in the new guidelines was the unchanged advice not to drink more than four drinks in any one day.

A more detailed look at the data, Mr Wilsmore said, showed “once again that the moderate consumption of alcohol has a legitimate place as a normal part of Australian society”.

“This has been a very one-sided view against the cardioprotective benefits of moderate consumption,” he said.

However, the NHMRC said it had struck the right balance, taking into account “some consideration of the protective effects of alcohol” while “erring on the side of caution”.

“In any public health guidelines, it is important that advice be consistent, clear and cautious, erring on the side of protecting health,” the report says.

“The guidelines aim to strike a balance, incorporating what is known about average drinking patterns and the harms related to different levels of consumption, while acknowledging uncertainties in the evidence.”