Aussie drink-driving laws have similar penalties, but our BAC level is still at .05. This will be moved to .02 in the coming years. Be safe for you, your family and the person you may injure because, you thought you were ‘ok to drive!’
SHOULD YOU BE DRIVING? DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE....EVER!
Expert fears shift to home drinking may fuel increases in violence, fires and dependence
Alcohol is an “unhelpful coping strategy” for the possible stress and isolation of coronavirus lockdown, a World Health Organisation (WHO) expert has warned.
The UN agency acknowledged that many turn to drugs and alcohol in times of crisis, as a new survey suggested the pandemic has caused nearly two thirds of adults in the UK to feel anxious or worried.
But using substances to cope “can make things worse”, cautioned Dr Aiysha Malik, a technical officer at WHO Europe’s mental health and substance abuse department.
Dr Piper warned that “with routines out of the window we might well find ourselves reaching for a drink more often”.
Initial reports of supermarkets running out of alcohol and online retailers being overwhelmed with orders may point to a possible increase in consumption, but experts say it is too early to tell the overall impact that coronavirus will have on the nation’s drinking habits.
But it is logical to predict that alcohol only being available for home consumption may lead to rises in domestic violence, fires and potential increases dependence, according to James Morris of South Bank London University’s centre for addictive behaviours research.
Blurred vision and slurred speech are expected when someone has drank too much.
How alcohol harms the brain in the long term is not so clearly understood - particularly how it ages the brain.
Now, a study has found drinkers who like a pint of beer or glass of wine every day show more signs their vital organ is shrinking.
Researchers looked at brain scans from thousands of Britons aged between 45 to 81, and compared it with their drinking habits.
For every extra gram of alcohol consumed per day, participants brains' were 0.02 years older - the equivalent of a day and a half.
An 'old' brain would show more signs of deterioration than the brains of average people the same age in scans.
In the 11,600 individuals for whom information on drinking behavior was collected, those who drank alcohol on most days had a higher relative brain age than those who drank less frequently or not at all.
Parents are being asked to reconsider allowing their kids to drink alcohol these holidays.
PIXABAY
Thinking about giving a child wine or beer during Christmas dinner? Researchers say even a "sip" could lead to toxic drinking habits as they become older.
Key points:
Drinking even once as a child was associated with binge drinking in later years
A researcher said Australia had an unhealthy approach to alcohol compared to other countries
Health authorities have revised their "safe" levels of alcohol consumption to 10 standard drinks a week
The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) said it was conventional wisdom among parents that giving their underage children was a safe way to introduce them to drinking.
But the centre has published the results of an ongoing study about parental supply of alcohol — so far tracking 1,927 children from Year 7 to Year 12 — which indicated otherwise.
Amy Peacock, a senior research fellow at NDARC, said there was no benefit to supervising children's alcohol consumption and it was instead likely to increase how often adolescents drank.
"Providing alcohol, even if in the form of sips rather than full drinks, is associated with increased risks of later binge drinking and harms," Dr Peacock said.
She said even if a child drinks only once, especially when they are under 16 years old, it was more likely they would become regular drinkers in their senior years of high school.
"The sooner an adolescent is introduced to alcohol, the greater the chance they could be affected by harms like violence and serious accidents caused by drinking," she said.
"Also the greater change with an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, like binge drinking and dependence."
Researchers studied more than 120,000 people in Japan and their cancer rates
They found risk of any cancer rose by five per cent with a daily drink for a decade
Cancers of the mouth, throat and breast were most commonly triggered
Scientists said people who had never drunk alcohol in their lives were least likely to get any form of the disease.
'NO AMOUNT OF ALCOHOL IS SAFE'
A major study by the University of Washington last year ruled there is no safe level of alcohol to drink.
The good sides of the occasional glass of wine, such as protecting against heart disease, are heavily outweighed by the downsides – links to a great swathe of cancers, they said.
Their study showed alcohol is responsible for 2.8million deaths each year worldwide and the only way to avoid alcohol-related health issues is to stop drinking altogether.
Globally, one in three people drink alcohol - the equivalent to 2.4 billion people, while 2.2 per cent of women and 6.8 per cent of men die from alcohol-related health problems each year.
Alcohol use was ranked as the seventh leading risk factor for premature death and disability worldwide in 2016, and was the leading cause for people aged 15 to 49.
In that age group it is associated with tuberculosis, road injuries, and self-harm. For people aged 50 and older, cancers were a leading cause of alcohol-related death, constituting 27.1 per cent of deaths in women and 18.9 per cent of deaths in men.
Study lead author Dr Max Griswold said: 'The widely held view of the health benefits of alcohol needs revising, particularly as improved methods and analyses continue to shed light on how much alcohol contributes to global death and disability.'
The research was published in UK medical journal, The Lancet.
Alcohol consumption is increasing in many countries, and excessive alcohol consumption is particularly increasing among older adults. Excessive alcohol consumption causes morbidity and mortality, especially among older adults, including an increased risk of depressive episodes. We review the mechanisms through which alcohol consumption may affect depression, and argue that the effects of alcohol consumption on depressive episodes among older adults are understudied.
Excessive alcohol consumption among older adults is a concern not only for physical, but also for mental health. Physician efforts to screen older adults for excessive alcohol use is critical for mental health to remain strong in aging populations.
