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Up to 210,000 people in England and Wales will be killed prematurely by alcohol over the next 20 years, with a third of those preventable deaths due to liver disease alone, health experts warned Monday.

Other alcohol-related deaths will be due to accidents, violence and suicide, or from chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, strokes, heart disease and cancer, the experts warned in a projection study in the Lancet medical journal.

Yet Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians and one of the lead authors of the work, said it was „entirely within the power of the UK government“ to take steps to tackle Britain’s drink problem and „prevent the worst-case scenario of avoidable deaths.“

The experts pointed to measures taken in the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, which they said saw alcohol consumption fall by a third in two years with a resulting 12 percent drop in the rate of alcohol-related deaths.

The warning comes after British Prime Minister David Cameron promised last week to crack down on excessive drinking, calling it a „scandal“ that costs the taxpayer-funded National Health System an estimated 2.7 billion pounds ($4.3 billion) a year. …
(Source: Harvard World Health News, 02/23/12) reuters.com, 02/19/12

The number of young people having to be treated in hospital for serious liver disease has risen by more than 50 per cent in the last decade, figures show. (Source: Eurocare Newsletter January-February 2011)

… Than In Other European Countries
The UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand have similar cultures, genetic backgrounds and drinking cultures, and, until the mid-1980s, had similar death rates from liver disease. However, while liver death rates in most of these countries have remained low since then, the UK has seen a doubling of its liver death rate from 4.9 per 100,000 population to 11.4. In a Comment published Online First by The Lancet, three experts, including Royal College of Physicians Past President Ian Gilmore, discuss the thousands of deaths from liver disease that can be avoided if the UK adopts appropriate alcohol policies. (Source: Medical News Today, 02/22/11)

Fewer children are abusing booze but deaths are rising as north-south drinks divide opens in England.
Deaths from alcohol in England climbed to 6,769 in 2008, liver disease was the most common cause. Fatalities have risen by 24% since 2001. The figures, revealing a surge in prescriptions for medicines to treat alcoholism and a slight decrease in overall consumption, suggest that awareness of the health dangers and, possibly, the recession may be having some impact.
A cultural divide in drinking habits appears to be opening up between southern and northern England, with far less being drunk in London than elsewhere in the country. If overall consumption is falling, death rates – which chiefly reflect long term physical damage – will take some time to reflect any change. (Source: Harvard World Health News, 5/27/10) guardian.co.uk, 5/26/10

Obesity and alcohol act together to increase the risk of liver disease in both men and women according to two studies published on bmj.com today. These findings have significant clinical and public health implications. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/12/10) Comment: This is a good answer to the study yesterday: „Women who drink moderately appear to gain less weight“

Governments across the globe must unite and act now to develop a worldwide treaty on alcohol to reduce the growing burden of alcohol related harm, warns a liver specialist in this week’s BMJ.
Rarely a day passes by when, as hepatologists, we don’t see a patient whose psychological or physical wellbeing has been marred by alcohol, writes Dr Debbie Shawcross from the Institute of Liver Studies at King’s College Hospital in London.
In the UK, the death rate from alcoholic liver disease has doubled in the past 10 years, while its incidence has risen eightfold in the under 35s as a culture of binge drinking has evolved among young people. As such, the incidence of cirrhosis is expected to increase exponentially and there will be a 500% greater need for liver transplantation in the next decade. (Source: Medical News Today, 5/5/09)

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Where there is life there is hope and it is never too late to stop drinking, even with the most severe case of alcohol-related liver disease, according to new research from the University of Southampton. (Source: Medical News Today: 4/16/09)

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New Study Finds Long-term daily drinking, rather than weekly binge drinking, is by far the biggest risk factor in serious liver disease, according to a new report from the University of Southampton.
The study concludes that increases in UK liver deaths are a result of daily or near daily heavy drinking, not episodic or binge drinking, and this regular drinking pattern is often discernable at an early age. It also recommends that several alcohol-free days a week is a healthier drinking pattern. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/19/09)