Alcohol sales and units consumed falls

Alcohol sales in Scotland dropped by 4% between 2010 and 2011. The recent statistics unveiled in The Scottish Health Survey also reveal that the average number of units consumed weekly by both men and women has fallen since 2003. For men, the average
usual weekly consumption in 2003 was 20.3 units compared to 17.5 in 2009. For women the figure fell from 9.1 units in 2003 to 7.8 in 2009. Despite this positive news, the Scottish Government is pressing ahead with its minimum pricing policy, as well as, plans to drop the drink-drive limit to 50mg of alcohol instead of 80mg per 100 per 100ml of blood. Former Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon
said, “I welcome the drop in sales of alcohol in 2011, however sales are still at an unacceptably high level and are still around a fifth higher than in England and Wales.” But a new study funded by the Foundation for Liver Research, which was was led by Professor
Roger Williams, who was footballer George Best’s surgeon, suggests that this could be because of our water. The study looked at hospital admissions for alcoholic liver disease (ALD) in England and compared them with the type of tap water available. Areas with
a soft supply – which has low levels of magnesium – witnessed ALD rates 21% above the national average while those with hard water had rates 13% below the norm. The report said, “Scotland’s drinking water is almost uniformly soft and there is considerable
experimental evidence implicating magnesium deficiency in the [development] of alcohol-induced liver damage.”
Supplementing our water supplies with Magnesium could also cut alcohol related deaths.