Canadians Don’t Know Risks of Moderate Alcohol Consumption, Cancer Warning Labels Needed: Study

The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) has released a new report that shows no amount of alcohol is safe, among other findings. This has increased the pressure on the government to put cancer warnings on alcohol as experts state that most Canadians don’t know the risks involved in consuming even moderate amounts.

The 2011 Low Risk Drinking Guidelines recommended up to 15 drinks for men and 10 drinks for women per week to reduce long-term health risks. Now, a new study by CCSA has challenged these guidelines and pointed out that no amount of alcohol is safe. It also noted that consuming any more than two drinks a week can be risky.

The new study found that three-to-six drinks a week increases the risk of developing certain cancers, including colorectal and breast cancer. Consuming more than seven drinks a week increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Every additional drink increases the danger.

Catherine Paradis, the interim associate director of research for the CCSA, said, “The last time we did the guidelines, it was in 2011. In 10 years, there have definitely been significant improvements in our understanding of mortality and morbidity associated with alcohol use. We have a much better understanding of the link between alcohol and cancer.” The study found that 40 percent of Canadians drink more than six drinks a week while 17 percent of Canadians consume three-to-six drinks a week.

Based on these findings, the CCSA is asking the government to start putting warning labels on alcohol containers that mention the alcohol risk, along with the number of standard drinks available in the container. This notion was recently backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as well.

A real-world study of this experiment was carried out in 2017 in Yukon by a senior scientist with Public Health Ontario named Erin Hobin. The warning labels were placed on alcohol containers and the researchers found that not only did people take in the message deeply, they also drank less. “What we learned from that study was that the cancer warning grabbed consumer attention. They read the cancer warning very closely. They thought about that message. They talked to their neighbors and their friends about that message, so there was real deep processing of that message.”

Vineet Washington