Get a Clue - Booze

Details: Published: 17 December 2021; Hits: 1572

While many Australians enjoy pleasures associated with drinking alcohol, we need to treat it with more caution, with alcohol consumption conservatively estimated to cost the Australian community $66.8 billion a year in health, workplace and other costs, according to research released today. This dollar figure covers some significant personal and community level harms.

Examining the Social and Economic Costs of Alcohol Use in Australia: 2017/18, published by the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) at Curtin University in Perth, is the first national update in a decade of the costs of alcohol use. Using up-to-date methods of calculating costs and including a number of previously uncounted conditions and costs, it is substantially higher than the 2010 estimate of $14.4 billion. The main estimate includes some reference to ‘protective’ effects from alcohol, consistent with the evidence. A conservative estimate was made in our calculation of costs, as further harms where a reliable cost could not be estimated were excluded.

The research behind the updated national estimate was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, and found that in the 2017-2018 financial year:

alcohol was responsible for $18.2 billion in tangible costs including from: ill health; health service costs such as emergency department and hospital admissions; worker absence and occupational injuries; crime; road traffic crashes; and, alcohol purchases by those dependent on alcohol (but not by other alcohol consumers);
alcohol was responsible for another $48.6 billion in intangible costs, which is the value of items that can’t be bought or sold, such as years of life lost from premature death, lost quality of life from living with alcohol dependence or from child abuse, and, impacts on victims of alcohol-caused crime; and,
not included in the overall total were costs such as those associated with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder ($16 billion). There is a clear need for evidence about the prevalence of FASD to allow an accurate estimate of cost and to inform preventive and other responses.

There were several other critical areas where, due to limited data, reliable cost estimates were difficult to determine including: lost quality of life from living with someone with alcohol dependence; and, reduced workplace productivity (‘presenteeism’). Although not included in the overall total, indicative estimates suggested that these outcomes were highly likely to attract substantial costs.

“Alcohol continues to cause a significant toll through premature deaths, with 5,219 cases attributed to alcohol in 2017/18, personal suffering, reduced quality of life, and real financial costs in Australia,” Professor Allsop said.

“Nearly half-a-million Australians are dependent on alcohol, with many more drinking in a way that puts their health at risk. Importantly, any member of the community can be impacted by the drinking of others. The many adverse health effects and other consequences result in significant costs to society. Effective strategies to address alcohol related harms have the potential to substantially reduce medical costs, improve productivity, diminish crime, and lower costs to the whole community while improving community and individual wellbeing.”

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Details: Published: 16 September 2021; Hits: 1815

ABSTRACT

Background: Reducing the alcohol-attributable cancer burden in the WHO European Region is a public health priority. This study aims to estimate the number of potentially avoidable cancers in countries of the WHO European Region in 2019 for three scenarios in which current excise duties on alcoholic beverages were increased by 20%, 50%, or 100%.

Methods: Mean prices and excise duties for beer, wine, and spirits in the Member States of the WHO European Region in 2020 were used as the baseline scenario. We assumed that increases in excise duties (20%, 50%, and 100%) were fully incorporated into the consumer price. Beverage-specific price elasticities of demand, with lower elasticities for heavy drinkers, were obtained from a meta-analysis. Model estimates were applied to alcohol exposure data for 2009 and cancer incidence and mortality rates for 2019, assuming a 10-year lag time between alcohol intake and cancer development and mortality.

Findings: Of 180,887 (95% Confidence interval [CI]: 160,595-201,705) new alcohol-attributable cancer cases and 85,130 (95% CI: 74,920-95,523) deaths in the WHO European Region in 2019, 5•9% (95% CI: 5•6-6•4) and 5•7% (95% CI: 5•4-6•1), respectively, could have been avoided by increasing excise duties by 100%. According to our model, alcohol-attributable female breast cancer and colorectal cancer contributed most to the avoidable cases and deaths.

Interpretation: Doubling current alcohol excise duties could avoid just under 6% (or 180,900 cases and 85,100 deaths) of new alcohol-attributable cancers within the WHO European Region, particularly in Member States of the European Union where excise duties are in many cases very low.

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Details: Published: 15 September 2021; Hits: 1832

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a condition which creates irregular heartbeat/rhythm. Previous research has found that chronic alcohol use could predict the condition.

A new study has found that acute alcohol use is also linked to triggering of AF episodes. Which means by reducing/stopping alcohol use patients could improve heart health by decreasing the number of AF episodes.

Details: Published: 06 July 2021; Hits: 1567

Mortality from liver disease has increased over the last decade in the US. Alcohol is a known cause, but its use also contributes to the development or progression of other types of liver disease, complicating efforts to quantify the overall impact of alcohol use on liver disease. Researchers developed causal and statistical models based on a narrative review of the literature to assess the relationships between alcohol use and the development or progression of various liver diseases in the US in 2017, including through alcohol’s interactions with other relevant behavior-related risk factors.

Alcohol use caused 54,500 incident cases of liver cirrhosis, of which approximately 35% were from diseases other than alcohol-associated cirrhosis.
Through interaction with behavioral risk factors, alcohol use accounted for the progression to cirrhosis of 10,400 cases of obesity-related liver disease and 7700 cases of hepatitis C virus.
Alcohol use caused 47,300 total deaths from liver disease, including 6600 from liver cancer.

Comments: Accounting for alcohol’s role in liver diseases that are exacerbated by alcohol consumption or caused by alcohol-associated risk factors yields substantially higher estimates of morbidity and mortality than those based on diseases for which alcohol is the original or principal cause. This has important implications for public health surveillance, and serves as a reminder to clinicians about the role of alcohol in a wide range of liver diseases.

Timothy S. Naimi, MD, MPH

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Details: Published: 27 June 2021; Hits: 1482

The NHMRC Drinking Guidelines 2021: It is important to note these are just ‘guidelines’, not recommendations.

However, the growing evidence around both short- and long-term harms of alcohol consumption warrant a more robust set of warnings for consumers to better inform and create appropriate awareness of the real and growing harms.

You will note that alcohol should not be consumed by

those under the age of 18 or (Growing evidence suggests 21 should be Minimum Legal Drinking Age)
women pregnant or trying to become so.

But also, it is important to emphasise that you should also not consume alcohol if,

you want to lower your risk of cancer.
you want tor reduce intimate partner violence
you want reduce violence against children and family
you want to reduce other harms including, injuries, loss of productivity, accidents and other growing costs

Further recommended resources,

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