While we have some evidence that very moderate alcohol consumption can be beneficial to health, what we can be sure of is that excessive consumption causes serious problems. Now, Australian researchers have found a strategy that can help those looking to reduce consumption.

Combine strategies.
It’s actually a combination of strategies: one based on why to stop drinking and the other based on how to do it. Specifically, they combined the use of an information campaign explaining the link between alcohol consumption and cancer; with the tactic of counting drinks, that is, keeping track of the drinks consumed in order to reach a more conscious consumption.

Why should we reduce alcohol consumption?
Excessive alcohol consumption has been linked to numerous health problems, some serious, from digestive issues to heart disease, but it’s also linked to an increased risk of cancer.

While the real victim of alcohol consumption is the liver, we now know that an excess of this substance can affect our DNA. DNA changes may be (at least in part) behind the link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk.

Count the drinks.
Quitting or reducing alcohol consumption is no easy task. There are numerous strategies that are more or less beneficial depending on the circumstances of the person wishing to implement them. Some fall under the category of so-called protective behavior strategies (PBS).

A new study published in the journal Addictive Behaviorsanalyzed the effectiveness of some of these strategies, and implemented them alone and in conjunction with an information campaign dedicated to warning about the impact of alcohol on cancer development.

Study.
The researchers administered several questionnaires in succession to a group of participants, all of whom were Australian and, according to the study authors, representatives of the Australian drinking population, the country where the study was conducted.

Participants were divided into eight groups, each of which was assigned a strategy to reduce alcohol consumption, except the control group. The first strategy consisted of informative audio-visual materials discussing the carcinogenic effect of alcohol. All three strategies relied on behavioral strategies, such as setting a pre-drink limit or tracking the drinks consumed. The last three groups combined behavioral strategies with audiovisual material.

2,687 participants (approximately 8,000 at baseline) completed the end of the three study questionnaires. The researchers found that the combination of drinks counting and advertisements related to alcohol’s carcinogenicity was the only thing that led to a significant reduction in alcohol consumption.

Other strategies.
While the results did not allow us to confirm a significant effect of these strategies, other strategies such as the ads themselves and predetermining the number of drinks to consume also helped to some extent.

Asking people to stop drinking is not enough.
Alcohol is so ingrained in Western societies that telling people not to drink it is useless. The strategy proposed by the Australian team relies on informing and equipping people with the necessary tools to reduce their desired alcohol consumption.

In the words of Simone Pettigrew, who chaired the publication announcing the study, “This is important information that drinkers need access to. But telling people that alcohol causes cancer is only part of the solution, we also need to give them ways to act to reduce their risk.”

More alcohol, fewer deaths than in Australia.
Spain is the ninth country with the highest alcohol consumption in the world (Seychelles and Uganda top this ranking, with Europe closing the 10 top drinking country groups: Czechia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Germany, as well as Germany on average 12.72 liters per capita per year Pure alcohol is consumed, which is slightly more than twice the global average and the equivalent of more than two bottles of wine per week.

We do not yet know whether this strategy, which has proven effective in Australian participants, will also be the best strategy in Spain. Consumption habits are highly dependent on the cultural characteristics of each country or region, so an answer can only be guaranteed by conducting the experiment in our environment. Australia consumes less than two liters of alcohol per capita per year (10.51 litres).

Spain and Australia converge in one piece of information: The percentage of annual deaths attributable to alcohol is 4.3% in the Spanish sample, and slightly higher in Australia, 4.6%.

Image | Kelsey Luck