Better alcohol regulation will save lives and money
Alcohol harm costs England at least £27bn a year – almost double what the Treasury collects in alcohol duty. These harms aren't incidental to the alcohol market; they are intrinsic to it. While the industry promotes 'moderate drinking', evidence shows that its profits and growth depend on the heaviest drinkers. It's no coincidence that Diageo's CEO recently described moderation as the industry's 'biggest disrupter'.
Policies that reduce alcohol consumption are consistently shown to be sound investments, recommended by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the World Health Organization. In Scotland, the introduction of minimum unit pricing (MUP) led to a 13% drop in alcohol-specific deaths and a 4% fall in hospital admissions. If adopted in England, MUP could reduce premature mortality while saving the NHS millions and help create a healthier workforce.
England urgently needs a national alcohol strategy. Bold, evidence-based measures like MUP must be at its core, with commercial vested-interest groups kept at the margins.Dr Katherine SeveriChief executive, Institute of Alcohol Studies
• Your editorial reflects the serious concerns that we at World Cancer Research Fund and many other organisations have around the ineffectiveness of England's alcohol regulation. The evidence shows that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption when it comes to cancer risk. And there are around 17,000 alcohol-related cancer cases in the UK every year, as well as 200 other associated health conditions caused by alcohol.
In our Cancer Prevention Action Week (23-29 June), we will showcase polling that highlights the chasm between public perception about alcohol and cancer risks. We want the public to have correct health information at their disposal so they can understand their cancer risks and make informed choices. Now is the time for direct action. The UK government urgently needs to join the dots on regulation around alcohol marketing and labelling.
We urge members of the public to do their part and sign our petition to advocate with us for better regulation in England. Dr Giota Mitrou Executive director of research and policy, World Cancer Research Fund
• Nearly half of UK adults now drink alcohol-free products, and our research shows that 68% of them use these drinks to cut down on alcohol. But despite this momentum, outdated labelling rules are holding people back.
For over a decade, governments have delayed a straightforward change: allowing drinks at or below 0.5% ABV to be labelled 'alcohol-free'. This is already the international standard and reflects the reality – drinks at this level contain no more alcohol than a ripe banana, sourdough bread or even some soft drinks. Yet UK producers are still forced to use the term 'low alcohol' for these drinks, confusing consumers and deterring many from trying them.Laura WilloughbyCo-founder, Club Soda
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New York Post
a day ago
- New York Post
I went blind after drinking a tainted cocktail while traveling — the scary threat you've never heard of
There could be an undetectable poison lurking in your vacation cocktail. A Canadian woman is warning social media users after she lost her eyesight from sipping a stealthily toxic cocktail overseas — and she says she's one of the lucky ones. In December, seven tourists were hospitalized in Fiji after drinking tainted booze at a luxury resort bar. Just a month earlier, six young travelers, including one American, died in Laos under similar circumstances. Advertisement 6 Ashley King wasn't born blind. She lost her eyesight after drinking a poisoned alcoholic beverage abroad. TikTok / @ashkng Each year, thousands are killed or sickened after unknowingly consuming alcoholic beverages laced with methanol. 'It smells no different and it tastes no different from the alcohol that we typically drink,' explained Ashley King, who lost her vision after drinking tainted booze while backpacking through Bali. Methanol is a clear, flammable liquid that smells almost identical to ethanol — its drinkable cousin — but don't be fooled: it's highly toxic to humans. Advertisement 'Just as little as 30 milliliters of it — a shot — can kill you, and 15 milliliters of it can make you go blind, have organ failure, liver damage and even brain damage,' King warned. The chemical is commonly used in household and industrial products, such as gasoline, antifreeze, paint thinner and windshield wiper fluids. But on the black market, especially in developing countries, it's often dumped into bootleg alcohol to stretch supply and fatten profits. Advertisement That toxic mix is then sold to bars, hotels and other establishments, where it's served to unsuspecting patrons. 6 If ingested, methanol can cause severe health issues. kittisak – 'No different from any other night' That's what happened to King, who was visiting southern Bali in 2011 on a gap year before starting college. She and her friend were at a high-end bar, where she got drunk on vodka cocktails. Advertisement 'It was no different from any other night that I'd had when I was there,' she said. Though she felt hungover the next day, she first suspected something was wrong about two days later when they arrived in Australia. 'I remember talking to the customs people and it was like I was drunk,' she told The Guardian. 'I could not form sentences in a way that sounded confident.' After landing in New Zealand, she went to sleep when they got to their hotel. When she woke up at noon the next day, she was confused to find her hotel room seemed to be totally dark. But it wasn't dark — there was something wrong with her vision. She also couldn't breathe. 6 Ashley (pictured on her gap year in 2011) didn't know anything was wrong with her drink while out with a friend in Bali. Instagram / @ashkng At the hospital, a blood rest revealed methanol in her blood. It was bad enough that doctors were surprised she'd even woken up. 'Losing my eyesight is the hardest thing I've ever gone through, and I deal with it every single day,' King said on TikTok. The hidden danger lurking in your drink Advertisement When methanol enters the body, it turns into formaldehyde and formic acid — both highly toxic — which causes the blood to become dangerously acidic, according to the Methanol Institute. Early symptoms can mimic an ordinary night out drinking: dizziness, nausea, vomiting, poor judgment and drowsiness. But things can go from bad to deadly within 12 to 24 hours of drinking — and in some cases, more severe symptoms take up to 72 hours to surface, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While a normal hangover fades, methanol poisoning only gets worse. Victims may suffer severe abdominal pain, vomiting, vertigo, trouble breathing, confusion, headaches and blurry vision. Advertisement In more severe cases, blindness, seizures and coma can follow. 6 At the hospital — where doctors were surprised she'd made it alive — she had to drink vodka to help flush the methanol from her system. Instagram / @ashkng The Institute says methanol poisoning can often be treated if doctors intervene within 10 to 30 hours. One surprising thing that can help? Drinking alcohol. While she was in the hospital, King says she was given several vodkas with orange juice to flush the methanol from her system. Advertisement 'It was the most absurd drinking game I've ever played,' she said. 'The drunker I got the more I could breathe, the more I was able to see.' They also give her hemodialysis to filter waste from the blood, plus steroids to try to fix her eyes — but she was left with only about 2% vision, which she describes as 'like snowfall or a TV screen.' 'I've never felt so alone in my life,' she said. 'Three days ago, I had had my entire life ahead of me. 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The Hill
2 days ago
- The Hill
Democrats press UnitedHealth Group over nursing home policies
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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Lung cancer warning for foods which make up ‘half the average diet' after new study
Ultra-processed foods filled with preservatives, additives and flavour enhancers have been linked to an increased risk of lung cancer. In the UK and US, more than half of the average diet consists of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), such as ready meals, fast food and fizzy drinks. A previous BMJ study in 2024 linked UPFs to 32 harmful health effects including a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, adverse mental health and early death. Now, eating UPFs has been linked to lung cancer - the most common cancer in the world, according to the World Cancer Research Fund. There were an estimated 2.2 million new cases and 1.8 million deaths from the disease worldwide in 2020, researchers of the study published in the respiratory journal Thorax said. But limiting consumption of these foods may help curb the global impact of the disease, the researchers say. Although there is no exact definition of a UPF, these foods typically undergo multiple processing steps, contain long lists of additives and preservatives, and are ready-to-eat or heat. Researchers drew on data from the US Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trials, involving 155,000 participants aged 55 to 74 who were randomly assigned to either a screening or comparison group between November 1993 and July 2001. Cancer diagnoses were tracked until the end of 2009, and cancer deaths until the end of 2018. A total of 101,732 people (50,187 men and 51,545 women, with an average age of 62) who completed a questionnaire on their dietary habits upon entry to the trials were included in the study. Foods were categorised as: unprocessed or minimally processed; containing processed culinary ingredients; processed; or ultra-processed. The researchers focused in particular on UPFs that included sour cream, as well as cream cheese, ice cream, frozen yoghurt, fried foods, bread, baked goods, salted snacks, breakfast cereals, instant noodles, shop-bought soups and sauces, margarine, confectionery, soft drinks, sweetened fruit drinks, restaurant/shop-bought hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza. The three types of food that featured the most were lunch meat (11 per cent), diet or caffeinated soft drinks (just over 7 per cent) and decaffeinated soft drinks (nearly 7 per cent). Participants were tracked for 12 years and in that time, 1,706 new cases of lung cancer were diagnosed, including 1,473 cases of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 233 of small cell lung cancer (SCLC). After accounting for potentially influential factors, including smoking and overall diet quality, participants who ate the most UPFs were 41 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer than those who ate the least. Overall, they were 37 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with NSCLC and 44 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with SCLC. Because it was an observational study and no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, researchers acknowledge that they weren't able to factor in smoking intensity, which may have been influential. Dietary information was collected only once, so they could not account for changes over time, and the number of cancer diagnoses was small. But researchers do highlight the low nutritional value of UPFs and the excessive amounts of salt, sugar and fats they contain. 'The rise in UPF consumption may have driven global increases in obesity, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, cancer and mortality, as these foods are confirmed risk factors for such conditions,' the researchers suggested. 'Industrial processing alters the food matrix, affecting nutrient availability and absorption, while also generating harmful contaminants,' they added, highlighting acrolein, which is found in grilled sausages and caramel sweets and is a toxic component of cigarette smoke. Packaging materials may also have a role to play, they suggested. 'You can't say from this study that UPFs cause cancer as it's observational, so we're looking at associations, not direct effects. But it does strengthen the case for looking more closely at the food environment many people are living in where UPFs are cheap, convenient, and heavily marketed, making them a go-to for many,' Rob Hobson, nutritionist and author of Unprocess Your Family Life, told The Independent. He suggested, rather than 'pointing figures at individual foods', to instead make small shifts towards a healthier diet. 'That might mean cooking more from scratch where possible, adding in more whole foods like vegetables, beans and grains, or just becoming more aware of how often UPFs show up in your day,' he said. 'It's not about being perfect, it's about balance and understanding how your food choices could be supporting or undermining your long-term health.' Solve the daily Crossword
