New Alcohol Guidelines for Australians

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)  has released new guidelines on how much alcohol Australians can safely consume in order to avoid or reduce any adverse health effects.

The Australian Alcohol Guidelines to Reduce  Health Risks from Drinking Alcohol recommend:-

1. Healthy men and women have no more than 2 standard drinks a day to reduce lifetime health risks and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one single occasion to reduce the risk of injury from that drinking occasion.

2. Parents and carers should not allow children under 15 years to drink as this age group is most at risk of harm from alcohol. Children 15-17 years should be encouraged not to drink for as long as possible.

3. During pregnancy and breast feeding not drinking is the safest option.

The complete report (which is very large) can be downloaded from the NH&MRC website http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/ds10syn.htm

For those  wanting  a quick overview, The Frequently Asked Questions document  is a worthwhile read providing and overview of how the guidelines were developed and answers to commonly asked questions clients may ask. It has an excellent table listing the number of standard drinks ( 1 standard drink =10g alchohol) in various alcoholic drinks.  With wine glasses coming in larger sizes, its important to remember than one glass of wine is not necessarily  equivalent to one standard drink. A standard wine drink is 100mls but many wine glasses hold 150mls equivalent to 1.4 standard drinks.