Researchers are calling for alcohol consumption guidelines to be revised to reflect risks across different ages and geographical locations
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Alcohol is still seen as a popular and important part of Japan’s work and social culture, but consumption among younger generations is falling. That’s something the Japanese government is hoping to change.
Since the start of the pandemic, and a temporary ban on alcohol sold in bars in Tokyo and three other prefectures, sales have fallen further, denting the country’s tax revenues. Now, the National Tax Agency has announced a new campaign – ‘Sake Viva!’ – to repopularise alcohol among the young and boost the economy. Organisers say they aren’t encouraging heavy drinking and that people should only consume ‘the appropriate amount’. However, according to a new global study on the health risks, there’s no safe amount of alcohol for young people.
Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) have called for alcohol-consumption guidelines worldwide to be revised. ‘The message for young people, particularly ages 15 to 39 years, is that they should not drink,’ says Emmanuela Gakidou, senior author of the study. She admits that it’s unrealistic to expect young people to abstain altogether, but says that it’s important that people are able to make informed choices.
A key finding of the study is that the risks of alcohol vary. ‘This is really the first study to examine how the health risks from alcohol consumption might vary by different demographic factors – so by age, by sex and by geographic region,’ says Marissa Reitsma, a researcher at IHME. For example, alcohol use has been linked to higher incidences, and poorer outcomes, of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, so it poses a greater risk to population health in regions where there’s a high prevalence of the disease – South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – compared to areas of low prevalence, such as North Africa and the Middle East. These complex relationships between alcohol and different rates of diseases and health problems across the world should be reflected in government guidance on alcohol consumption, say the researchers. Commonly recognised risks of alcohol consumption include heart and liver disease, stroke and cancer, but according to the WHO, alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 diseases, injuries and other health conditions.
For young people, drinking has declined in most high-income countries over the past 20 years. In the UK, 26 per cent of 16–24-year-olds don’t drink at all. The reasons behind this shift are thought to include greater economic insecurity among young people, new ways of socialising (online), immigration from countries with high levels of alcohol abstinence and a greater awareness of the health risks associated with alcohol consumption. Nevertheless, across all regions, young people remain at the highest risk due to alcohol-related injuries. Despite declines in youth drinking, harmful alcohol use remains particularly high in Australasia and Europe, largely among males aged 15–39 years. In Europe, which is home to 13.7 per cent of the world’s population above the age of 15 but which consumes more than a fifth of all the alcohol worldwide, the greatest health risks come from heart disease and stroke. The message remains: all alcohol consumption is dangerous.
