The George Institute welcomes new national guidelines for reducing alcohol harm
The George Institute welcomes new guidelines announced today from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for reducing health risks from drinking alcohol. It is the first update since 2009.
Professor Simone Pettigrew, Program Head of Food Policy at The George Institute maintains alcohol is a major cause of preventable disease and death in Australia.
“Alcohol consumption rates are slowly going down – because evidence-based initiatives like this are effective in reducing consumption and improving health,” Professor Pettigrew said.
“We welcome the new guidelines as they better reflect current medical evidence and the health harms associated with alcohol consumption.”
The three guidelines are:
- To reduce the risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury, healthy men and women should drink no more than 10 standard drinks a week and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one day. The less you drink, the lower your risk of harm from alcohol.
- To reduce the risk of injury and other harms to health, children and people under 18 years of age should not drink alcohol.
- To prevent harm from alcohol to their unborn child, women who are pregnant or planning a pregnancy should not drink alcohol. For women who are breastfeeding, not drinking alcohol is safest for their babies.
You can see the new guidelines here.
