[토론주제] [Topic 2 - 2012.11.10] The risks of drinking too much

[Stephanie Lee]

[The risks of drinking too much]

Most people who have alcohol-related health problems aren’t alcoholics. They're simply people who have regularly drunk more than the recommended levels for some years.

Regularly drinking more than the recommended daily limits risks damaging your health. There's no guaranteed safe level of drinking, but if you drink less than the recommended daily limits, the risks of harming your health are low. And it's certainly not only people who get drunk or binge drink who are at risk. Most people who regularly drink more than the NHS recommends don't see any harmful effects at first. Alcohol’s hidden harms usually only emerge after a number of years. And by then, serious health problems can have developed. Liver problems, reduced fertility, high blood pressure, increased risk of various cancers and heart attack are some of the numerous harmful effects of regularly drinking more than the recommended levels. The effects of alcohol on your health will depend on how much you drink. The more you drink, the greater the health risks.

Drinkers can be divided into three risk categories:

•lower-risk drinkers 

•increasing-risk drinkers

•higher-risk drinkers

Read about alcohol units to work out how much alcohol there is in your drinks.

Lower-risk drinkers

Lower-risk drinking means that you have a low risk of causing yourself future harm. However, drinking consistently within these limits is called "lower-risk" rather than "safe" because drinking alcohol is never completely safe.

To be a lower-risk drinker, the NHS recommends that:

•Men should not regularly drink more than 3 to 4 units a day.

•Women should not regularly drink more than 2 to 3 units a day.

Even drinking less than this is not advisable in some circumstances. Drinking any alcohol can still be too much if you’re going to drive, operate machinery, swim or do strenuous physical activity. Pregnant women or women trying to conceive should not drink alcohol. When you drink, alcohol reaches your baby through the placenta. Too much exposure to alcohol can seriously affect your baby's development. If you're pregnant and choose to drink, do not drink more than 1 to 2 units of alcohol once or twice a week, and do not get drunk. This will minimise the risk to the baby. People who drink should aim to be in the lower-risk category to minimise the health risks.

Increasing-risk drinkers

Drinking at this level increases the risk of damaging your health. Alcohol affects all parts and systems of the body, and it can play a role in numerous medical conditions.

Increasing-risk drinking is:

•regularly drinking more than 3 to 4 units a day if you're a man

•regularly drinking more than 2 to 3 units a day if you're a woman 

If you're drinking at around these levels, your risk of developing a serious illness is higher than non-drinkers:

•Men are 1.8 to 2.5 times as likely to get cancer of the mouth, neck and throat, and women are 1.2 to 1.7 times as likely. 

•Women are 1.2 times as likely to get breast cancer.

•Men are twice as likely to develop liver cirrhosis, and women are 1.7 times as likely.

•Men are 1.8 times as likely to develop high blood pressure, and women are 1.3 times as likely.

If you're an increasing-risk drinker and you drink substantially more than the lower-risk limits, your risks will be even higher than those above. At these levels of drinking, you may already have alcohol-related problems, such as fatigue or depression, weight gain, poor sleep and sexual problems. Whatever your age or sex, you’re probably in worse physical shape than you would be otherwise. Also, you could easily have higher blood pressure due to your drinking. Some people argue a lot when they drink, which can negatively affect their relationships with family and friends.

Higher-risk drinkers

If you’re in this group, you have an even higher risk of damaging your health compared with increasing-risk drinkers.

Higher-risk drinking is:

•regularly drinking more than 8 units a day or 50 units a week if you're a man

•regularly drinking more than 6 units a day or 35 units a week if you're a woman 

Again, alcohol affects the whole body and can play a role in numerous medical conditions. You have a much higher risk of developing alcohol-related health problems. Your body has probably suffered some damage already, even if you’re not yet aware of it.

Compared to non-drinkers, if you regularly drink above higher-risk levels:

•You could be 3 to 5 times more likely to get cancer of the mouth, neck and throat.

•You could be 3 to 10 times more likely to develop liver cirrhosis.

•Men could have four times the risk of having high blood pressure, and women are at least twice as likely to develop it.

•You could be twice as likely to have an irregular heartbeat.

•Women are around 1.5 times as likely to get breast cancer.

The more you drink above the higher-risk threshold, the greater the risks. So some of the health risks can be even higher than those above. You’re likely to have the same problems as increasing-risk drinkers: feeling tired or depressed, or gaining extra weight. You may be sleeping poorly or having sexual problems. And, like increasing-risk drinkers but possibly more so, you’re likely to be in worse physical shape than you would be otherwise, whatever your age or sex. You could also have high blood pressure. At these levels, your drinking may make you argumentative, which might damage your relationships with family and friends. 

[Alcohol units]

We're supposed to be keeping an eye on how much we drink, but how many of us really know what a unit of alcohol is?

With so many different drinks and glass sizes, from shots to pints – not to mention bottles – it's easy to get confused about how many units are in your drink. The idea of counting alcohol units was first introduced in the UK in 1987 to help people keep track of their drinking.  Units are a simple way of expressing the quantity of pure alcohol in a drink. One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol, which is around the amount of alcohol the average adult can process in an hour. This means that within an hour there should be, in theory, little or no alcohol left in the blood of an adult, although this will vary from person to person.

The number of units in a drink is based on the size of the drink as well as its alcohol strength. For example, a pint of strong lager contains 3 units of alcohol, whereas the same volume of standard lager has just over 2 units.

Calculating units

Using units is a simpler way of representing a drink's alcohol content, which is usually expressed by the standard measure ABV, which stands for alcohol by volume.

ABV is a measure of the amount of pure alcohol as a percentage of the total volume of liquid in a drink. You can find the ABV on the labels of cans and bottles, sometimes written as "vol" or "alcohol volume" or you can ask bar staff about particular drinks. For example, wine that says "12% ABV" or "alcohol volume 12%" means that 12% of the volume of that drink is pure alcohol. You can work out how many units there are in any drink by multiplying the total volume of a drink (in ml) by its ABV (which is measured as a percentage) and dividing the result by 1,000.

•Strength (ABV) x Volume (ml) ÷ 1,000 = units.

For example, to work out the number of units in a pint (568ml) of strong lager (ABV 5.2%):

•5.2 (%) x 568 (ml) ÷ 1,000 = 2.95 units

To make things easier, use the units calculator to quickly calculate units and download a drinks tracker to your phone to keep on top of your drinking and get personalised feedback.

 Drinks and units

A 750ml bottle of red, white or rose wine (ABV 13.5%) contains 10 units.

See the guide below to find out how many units are in your favourite tipple.

 

*Gin, rum, vodka, whisky, tequila, sambuca. Large (35ml) single measures of spirits are 1.4 units.

 The NHS recommends:

Men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol a day.

Women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units a day.

If you've had a heavy drinking session, avoid alcohol for 48 hours. 

'Regularly' means drinking this amount every day or most days of the week. 

ref: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/alcohol-units.aspx

Questions

1. When is your first drinking experience?

2. What category are you in? (three risk categories: lower-risk drinkers, increasing-risk drinkers , higher-risk drinkers)

3. How often do you usually drink, and with whom?

4. What is your favorite liquor, and why?

5. How much can you drink? / How high is your tolerance for alcohol?

6. Have you gotten the bad signals in your health caused by alcohol? (ex, Liver problems, reduced fertility, high blood pressure, increased risk of various cancers and heart attack, insomnia, bad hang over, black out…etc…)

If you have, what did you do for recovery in your health?

7. If your boss push you to drink at office dinners and you don’t want to drink, how will you react to your boss? (reject / obey)

[Stephanie Lee]

제목은 쉬우나 내용은 좀 머리 아픈~~
Alcohol units 이란게 있단 것도 이번에 알았네요.
좋아하는 술을.. 이렇게 따져가며 마셔야 하는 건지는 좀 아이러니지만... 지식 공유의 차원에서~~ 유용하길 바래봅니다.

[Ernesto Agustin Lee]

스테파니 토픽 고맙습니다. 감사합니다.

[Stephanie Lee]

증말 증말.. 바빠요~ ㅠ.ㅠ 그래도 공들여 선정했어요...

[Fox Mulder]

In Korea, many people usually drink alcohol too much to relieve severe stress.
I think doing exercise is better than drinking alcohol to release stress.
Try to do exercise more, drink alcohol less for your future!

[Stephanie Lee]

I absolutely agree~^^

[Iriskorean]

쵸코 와인 있다는 얘기도 들었답니다~^^ 스테파니^^ 지난 주에 만나서 반가웠어요 !!
일때문에 못가서~ㅠ 좋은 주제로 토론할수 없는 것이 넘 슬프당~ㅠ
스테파니!! 넘 수고하셨습니다 !!! *^.~*

[Stephanie Lee]

초코와인이면... 따뜻한 와인에 초코를 녹인 맛? ㅋㅋㅋ
just monthly 뵐 수 있는 건가요? ㅠ.ㅠ 정말 바쁘시네요. 추워지는 날씨에 건강 유의하시고, 그 한번에 얼굴 뵐 수 있게.. 저 열심히 참석할게요~^^

[young07]

요즘 과음 중?^^ ..... 이신가요? 우리나라의 경우엔 소맥이 대세인것 같아 소맥을 기준으로 하면 어떻게 될까요?^^ㅋ
바쁘신데 이런 엄청난 톼픽을...감사 감사~