A complete of 18 medical-scientific societies come collectively to launch a message on alcohol: there isn’t a “responsible consumption” | Society | EUROtoday

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One of the primary communication methods of the alcohol trade is to advocate a “moderate consumption” or “responsible.” 18 medical-scientific societies have joined manifest to emphasise that “there is no level of consumption beneficial to health, so they are not acceptable” these claims. “No health professional should recommend alcohol consumption,” Zanjan.

The time to take action is just not unintended: the Council of Ministers authorized in March the draft legislation to cut back alcohol consumption in minors, which is now processed within the Congress of Deputies. These societies need to make their voice, counteract the foyer of alcohol and that the legislation is just not solely authorized (it stays to be seen the helps it’ll have), however even additional, in line with El País Asensio López, spokesman for the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (SEMFYC), one of many promoters of the manifesto.

One of the measures of the draft legislation was exactly to ban the declare for accountable or reasonable consumption, one thing that didn’t go the ultimate screening resulting from European laws that forestall it, in line with sources from the Ministry of Health.

Beyond these messages, medical-scientific societies consider that it’s essential to take measures to cut back the consumption of a substance that supposes in Spain the second preventable reason behind mortality (after tobacco), with about 15,000 deaths per 12 months.

“It also represents a huge morbidity load for more than 200 diseases and health problems, among which we highlight chronic alcohol liver disease, which is the first cause of liver transplantation in our country; heart and vascular disease (Personal already third parties) and social problems (family, work, fights, road accidents, fetal alcoholic spectrum disorders, etc), ”says the manifesto, which has been made public on Monday.

To all this, site visitors accidents add: the driving force examined constructive for 28% of circumstances wherein there are victims. “Both the usual risk consumption and occasional intensive consumption (binge drinking) They are associated with health problems. Consumption in minors alters brain development and predicts future problems of behavior and academic performance, ”continues the textual content, signed by societies of household, liver, nursing, pediatrics, public well being, gynecology and diabetes, amongst others.

The downside in minors is particularly worrying, so the signatories take into account it important to implement a legislation that reduces consumption. According to the National Survey, 53% of the children between 14 and 18 had drunk within the earlier month. Of them, 20.8% had drunk.

“We live in social hypocrisy,” Reason the SemfyC professional, who exhibits that these consumptions contradict themselves with the prohibition of promoting alcohol to minors. “We are self -enhanced. If someone begins to drink at age 20, it is difficult for him to have alcohol problems, but if he does the 15, the risks, of many types, multiply by five or six,” he continues.

López says they don’t pursue “a dry law” or need to be “Puritans of alcohol.” “If people drink, by leisure or for fun, it is their choice. But they must be very clear that it does not have a beneficial effect for their health, not even neutral,” he says.

There is a mythology of reasonable consumption that’s motivated partly by the paradox of the abstemious. Numerous research have proven that those that don’t eat a drop of alcohol undergo extra mortality than reasonable drinkers. This has served the trade as an argument to level out that the sort of consumption may even be constructive, a principle that some well being professionals have embraced.

These research had been conditioned as a result of most of the abstemias are resulting from earlier well being issues, or as a result of they’ve been alcoholic and left it, which distorted the outcomes. Other investigations that purified these confusion elements haven’t discovered this decrease mortality amongst reasonable drinkers. And there are quite a few investigations which have proven that even reasonable consumption includes dangers, reminiscent of a rise in most cancers likelihood.

In López’s opinion, it’s “very dangerous” to switch the inhabitants in a method or one other that alcohol will be good for well being. “Many people interpret this as an argument to drink. For many years the message of the World Health Organization is that neither the health or media of alcoholly beneficial connotations,” he says.

Measures to cut back consumption

The manifest signing societies suggest a sequence of structured measures across the lower in demand, the regulation of the atmosphere and the development of prevention and help. Among them, they ask for the rise in taxes, aligning them with the European common, and the institution of a minimal value per alcoholic unit, in addition to a strict regulation of promoting and sponsorship, even in 0.0 drinks, particularly in areas frequented by minors. The latter is collected within the invoice authorized by the Government in March.

The manifesto additionally advocates a transparent labeling that stories on the dangers of consumption, and for strengthening surveillance in public and wheel roads. Experts consider that the provide needs to be restricted by controlling factors, schedules and promotions in hospitality, and prohibiting the sale of kids’s merchandise that emulate alcoholic drinks.

In the preventive and welfare discipline, they take into account it important to implement validated academic applications within the faculty atmosphere, with the participation of households and with out interference within the trade, in addition to enhance well being coaching within the detection and remedy of threat consumption. They insist on the significance of accompaniment throughout being pregnant and with out alcohol, and cut back stigma in well being care. In addition, they suggest to advertise wholesome and with out alcohol leisure options, particularly for younger individuals and households, with the purpose of normalizing life with out consumption.

Finally, the signatory societies demand a dedication decided by prevention analysis, with sufficient financing, in order that public insurance policies are primarily based on strong proof and their actual impression on well being is evaluated.

https://elpais.com/sociedad/2025-05-12/un-total-de-18-sociedades-medico-cientificas-se-unen-para-lanzar-un-mensaje-sobre-el-alcohol-no-existe-el-consumo-responsable.html