Ep 100 – Alcohol and health: a review of the latest research

In this episode, Dr Hannah Rosa takes a look around the world at some of the different strategies that are being used to try to reduce the health complications caused by alcohol. She then looks at the latest research which links alcohol as a primary cause of a variety of cancers, before finishing with a consideration of the economic cost.

Key references

1. Cancer Research UK. How does alcohol cause cancer? 1 September 2023.
2. Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. Canada’s guidance on alcohol and health. January 2023.
3. Gov.UK. Chapter 12: Alcohol. 9 November 2021.
4. Woodhouse J. Alcohol: minimum pricing. Briefing paper (number 5021). House of Commons Library. 11 March 2020.
5. Christie B. BMJ. 2024;384:q352. doi: 10.1136/bmj.q352.
6. Briggs A and Dun-Campbell K. The government can no longer afford to be silent on England’s alcohol policy. The Telegraph. 28 June 2023.
7. Public Health England. The public health burden of alcohol and the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of alcohol control policies: an evidence review. December 2016.
8. Anderson P, et al. Lancet Public Health. 2021;6(8):e557-e565. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00052-9.
9. Government of Ireland, Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018. 17 October 2018.
10. World Health Organization. What’s in the bottle: Ireland leads the way as the first country in the EU to introduce comprehensive health labelling of alcohol products. 26 May 2023.
11. Office for National Statistics. Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK: registered in 2021. 8 December 2022.
12. Gov.UK. Local alcohol profiles for England: short statistical commentary, March 2023. 7 March 2023.
13. Stockwell T, et al. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2020;81(2):284-292.
14. World Health Organization. Alcohol is one of the biggest risk factors for breast cancer. 20 October 2021.
15. Hydes T.J, et al.BMC Public Health. 2019;19(1):316. doi: 10.1186/s12889-019-6576-9.
16. Institute of Alcohol Studies. The costs of alcohol to society. October 2020.

Key take-home points

• Around the world guidelines are changing and new initiatives are being implemented in the face of growing evidence of the harms that alcohol causes to health.
• Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK are at the highest rate on record.
• The World Health Organization declared alcohol a Group 1 carcinogen over 30 years ago and today alcohol has been linked with causing at least 7 types of cancer.
• Growing research is showing that even drinking a small amount of alcohol can increase the risks of developing a range of cancers.
• Is it time that the UK government changes its guidance on alcohol, and we change our clinical practice?