RCP Comment On ONS Death Rates Due To Alcohol, UK

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs
Article Date: 28 Jan 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, said:

"The new figures are deeply worrying as women seem to be more susceptible to the damaging physical effects of alcohol. This may be due to their smaller size and different fat distribution, but there are almost certainly other factors at play, possibly genetic and biochemical differences. My colleagues and I are certainly seeing more women with serious liver damage than ever before in our clinics. Liver disease is often symptomless until it becomes very serious, and so people often have no warning that they are destroying their liver until it is almost too late. The increase in deaths from liver disease in women from 35-54 is a consequence of heavy or binge drinking earlier in life in their twenties and thirties.

As a nation, we need a properly funded and co-ordinated national strategy to deal with the problem, including increasing the price of alcohol and reducing its availability."

Royal College of Physicians