Stay well with a few no-drinking days each week

Drinking the occasional glass of red wine may be good for us-but a new study suggests it’s important to have a few non-drinking days in between.

Drinking one or two glasses of alcohol every day greatly increases the risk of developing cirrhosis of the liver, research by the World Health Organization (WHO) has discovered. The disease has previously been associated purely with heavy drinking, rather than the frequency that people drink.

The WHO has reported that 6 per cent of all deaths around the world are caused by drinking alcohol, and most of these are from alcoholic cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is scarring of the liver caused by long-term damage, and half of all cases are caused by alcohol.

The WHO’s researchers analysed the alcohol consumption and drinking patterns from 193 countries to discover that the frequency we drink mattered more than the amount we drink.

(Source: European Association for the Study of the Liver report, April 25, 2015)

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