A newly launched NHS campaign will warn drinkers of the unseen health damage caused by regularly drinking more than the NHS recommended limits. The £6 million government funded campaign shows the damage that is being done to drinkers' organs while they are drinking in a pub or at home.
The campaign was launched by Public Health Minister Gillian Merron as part of the cross-government strategy to tackle the harms that alcohol causes. The Department of Health has developed the campaign in association with Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and the Stroke Association to create the series of stark TV, press and outdoor adverts showing the harm that regularly drinking more than two drinks a day can cause.
A new YouGov poll launched to coincide with the campaign shows that more than half (55%) of English drinkers misguidedly believe that alcohol only damages your health if you regularly get drunk or binge drink.
The survey of over 2,000 adults also found that 83% of those who regularly drink more than the NHS recommended limits of 2-3 units a day for women (about two small glasses of wine) and 3-4 units a day for men (about two pints of lager) do not think their drinking is putting their long-term health at risk. With 10 million adults in England estimated to be drinking above the recommended limits, this is equivalent to around 8.3 million people potentially unaware of the damage their drinking could be causing.
Although 86% of drinkers surveyed knew that drinking alcohol is related to liver disease, far fewer realised it is also linked with throat cancer (25%), mouth cancer (28%), breast cancer (7%), stroke (37%) and heart disease (56%), along with other serious conditions.
According to campaigners, you could be three times more likely to get mouth cancer and three times more likely to have a stroke if you are a man regularly drinking more than two pints of lager a day, and you are 50% more likely to get breast cancer and twice as likely to have high blood pressure if you are a woman regularly drinking two glasses of wine or more a day.
Gillian Merron said 'Drinking sensibly is not a problem, but, if you are regularly drinking more than the NHS recommended limits, you are more likely to get cancer, have a stroke or have a heart attack. With alcohol misuse damaging so many people's health and lives it is important to show drinkers the unseen damage alcohol can do to their body.'
Over 9,000 people in the UK die from alcohol-related causes each year. The World Health Organisation estimates that 20% of alcohol-related deaths are from cancer and 15% are from cardiovascular conditions such as heart disease and stroke, while 13% are from liver disease.
Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK's director of health information, said 'We know from decades of research that alcohol can increase the risk of several cancers including cancers of the breast, bowel, liver, mouth, foodpipe, throat and voicebox. Our bodies convert alcohol into a toxic chemical called acetaldehyde which can lead to cancer by damaging DNA and stopping our cells from repairing this damage. Alcohol can also increase levels of oestrogen and unusually high levels of oestrogen can increase the risk of breast cancer. The simple message is that the more you drink the greater your cancer risk but the more you cut down the more you reduce that risk.'
The campaign website,
