A new study which has been published in The Lancet has found that alcohol consumption has increased significantly on a global level. This research has been carried out by scientists from the Centre for Addition and Mental Health, Canada and the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
It has been revealed that in comparison to 30 years back, alcohol consumption has bumped up by lots. Researchers predict that the rates are only going to increase in the coming years. For the purpose of this research, the alcohol consumption trends from 1990 to 2017 through to 2030 were looked at.
The team analyzed intake rates per capita and worked with data taken from the World Health Organization and the Global Burden of Disease study to see the impacts of increased intake. The investigators involved also worked to find how many people hadn’t even consumed alcohol and how many were binge drinkers.
Binge drinking was defined by the intake of 60g or more of organic alcohol being consumed in one sitting. For this part of the research, data of the same period from 149 countries for non-alcohol drinkers was collected and from 118 countries for binge alcohol drinkers.
The researchers concluded that while the alcohol consumption patterns haven’t changed by much in high-income countries, low-income and middle-income countries are seeing a surprising increase. It was found that from 1990 to 2007, alcohol intake had increased by 70% with 20,999 million liters annually in 1990 rising to 35,676 million liters in 2017.
“Before 1990, most alcohol was consumed in high-income countries, with the highest use levels recorded in Europe. However, this pattern has changed substantially, with large reductions across Eastern Europe and vast increases in several middle-income countries, such as China, India, and Vietnam,” said Jakob Manthey, an author of the study.
The study found that the number of drinkers hadn’t increased as much as the alcohol intake per individual had. Alcohol consumption per capita which was 5.9 liters in 1990, as per estimates in 2030 is going to increase to 7.6 liters.
Experts further have predicted that about half the adults globally with be drinking alcohol by then and 23% of those will binge drink once every month, minimum. The use of alcohol consumption, researchers say depends on the policymakers, religion, and economic landscape of a country.
Researchers are urging policymakers to increase taxes on alcohol and decrease its availability. However, they are also expecting that no big changes will be made, and alcohol will continue to be on of the leading factors for disease around the world.
Alcohol comes with many vices as it can cause a massive number of health concerns. Apart from long-term, it also has short-term effects on cognitive abilities. Alcohol consumption has been linked to liver disease, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc. People must protect their own health and decrease their intake of alcohol.