A Health Canada-funded report recommends zero alcohol consumption, and calls for mandatory warning labels on all alcoholic beverages as a first step to that goal.
What's behind Canada's drastic new alcohol guidance | BBC News - Holly Honderich:
January 17, 2023 - "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 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% alcohol beer or a five-ounce (142ml; 0.26 pints) glass of 12% alcohol wine - brings an increase in negative outcomes, including breast and colon cancer.
"It may be a rude awakening for the roughly 80% of Canadian adults who drink. 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 new recommendations put the country out of step with several other Western nations. Australia's national guidance, published in 2020, recommends a maximum of 10 standard drinks a week. 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....
"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.... 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."
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64311705
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