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- Survey shows post-pandemic increase in drinking for some
- Scottish Government commit to further plans to restrict alcohol marketing
- Challenge and Change: Rod Anderson
- Parliament must come together to renew and reinvigorate MUP
- A responsible drinking campaign that features cocktail recipes
- Unacceptable rise in alcohol-specific deaths
- Health experts share concerns about complaint made on MUP evaluation
- Decline in alcohol treatment in Scotland
- Challenge and Change: Lived Experience Voices on Alcohol Marketing
- Blog post for Alcohol Awareness Week 2023
- Final verdict on MUP
- Alcohol and diabetes
- Doctors say lack of response on alcohol deaths could spell disaster for Scotland
- MUP reduces deaths and hospital admissions
- Alcohol hospital admissions continue to be too high
- Lessons learned from countries with marketing restrictions
- What is the effect of alcohol marketing on people with or at risk of an alcohol problem?
- ONS figures show highest alcohol deaths on record
- MUP and alcohol sales
- Scottish Government launches alcohol marketing consultation
- MUP and alcohol products and prices
- Scottish Health Survey 2021
- New licensing policy review guide
- Slight increase in alcohol-specific deaths
- Health campaigners call on Scottish Government to regulate alcohol packaging
- Scottish charity calls for ban on all alcohol promotion
- New NCD Prevention Report - Mapping Future Harm
- Online Alcohol Sales & Deliveries: A survey of young people in Scotland
- Four years of MUP
- Prominent health warnings make drinking “unappealing”
- Insights from People in Recovery
- Meet our Engagement Team Marc
- Meet our Engagement Team Megan
- Report on alcohol sales and harm in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Sugar content in wine revealed
- Alcohol hospital admissions lower during pandemic
- Study reveals those already at risk from heavy drinking bought more alcohol during lockdowns
- Alcohol policy measures could reduce ambulance callouts
- 18.6% increase in deaths from alcohol in 2020
- Widespread support for calls to increase minimum unit price for alcohol to 65p
- Students as Change Agents
- Health charities call for action to save lives from Scotlands biggest killers
- Three quarters of Scots back new controls to help protect children from alcohol advertising
- Alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland increase
- More accurate estimates for the burden of Alcohol on the Ambulance Service: around 1 in 6 callouts in Scotland are alcohol related
- How can alcohol labels be improved to help people make informed consumption choices
- Health experts call for better alcohol labelling
- Young people and their views on alcohol marketing
- Lowest alcohol sales in Scotland for 26 years
- Minimum unit pricing has lasting impact study shows
- Euros renews call for action to protect children from alcohol sports sponsorship
- Current alcohol labelling of little relevance to young adult drinkers
- Governments should step up efforts to tackle harmful alcohol consumption
- Scottish public and leading health experts back changes to alcohol labelling
- AFS calls for 65p minimum unit price for alcohol
- How will the main parties prevent harm from alcohol?
- Alcohol labelling reform is way past its sell by date
- Alcohol policy priorities for the next parliament
- Young drinkers believe prominent health warnings on alcohol could boost risk awareness
- Alcohol and the Workplace Effective Interventions
- Alcohol sales and consumption in Scotland during the pandemic
- How can we prevent alcohol deaths?
- Alcohol Deaths and Minimum Unit Pricing
- YoungScot Health Panel report on alcohol marketing and harm
- Young Scots show support for restrictions on alcohol marketing
- New release of alcohol related hospital admissions
- Better alcohol labelling – A way to boost awareness of the risk between alcohol and cancer?
- NICE Guidelines on FASD Surveillance or Support?
- Alcohol Deaths Prevention Support
- Almost half of Scots in favour of minimum unit pricing
- Leading health charities call for action in Scotland
- Health experts campaign for better understanding of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Health experts call for alcohol labelling overhaul
- Australian ministers agree to visible pregnancy warning
- Alcohol Focus Scotland welcomes new WHO report on alcohol pricing
- Survey shows Scots lockdown drinking rise caused by stress
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- Alcohol Focus Scotland Review of statements of licensing policy 2018 to 2023
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- New Alcohol Deaths Prevention Support Now Available from AFS
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- Its time to tell us whats in our drinks
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- Alcohol marketing and children debate in the Scottish Parliament
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- Lowest alcohol sales in 25 years
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- The Children's Parliament investigates an alcohol-free childhood
- Minimum unit pricing one year on
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- A family of resources it is all about prevention, education and resilience
- AFS publish Review of Licensing Board Annual Functions Reports 2017-2018
- Marketing unmasked dispelling the myths and taking a stand
- No place for alcohol marketing in sport
- Scotland publishes first UK guidelines for diagnosing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)
- The Alcohol Framework 2018 Preventing Harm
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- Recent reporting on alcohol sales data
- Diageo is failing to provide latest guidelines on their products
- Drinks companies keeping consumers in dark about risky drinking
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- Global first alcohol policy set to save hundreds of Scots' lives
- AFS welcomes minimum unit pricing for alcohol
- Truer picture of alcohol harm revealed
- Alcohol causes 3,700 deaths in Scotland every year
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- Minimum pricing blog
- Minimum pricing gets green light
- Alcohol brands and young people
- Time for honest conversations about alcohol
- Q&A on alcohol marketing
- UK children anxious about parents' drinking
- Alcohol producers failing to inform public
- Concern over alcohol-related deaths
- We need to make it easier for people to drink less
- Worrying rise in alcohol-related deaths
- Minimum pricing will save lives
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- What next for reducing alcohol harm in Scotland?
- Scotland must do more to turn tide of alcohol harm
- Concern as funding for alcohol services cut
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- Consumers have the right to know health risks
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- SWA granted leave to appeal minimum pricing
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- Minimum pricing - European court ruling
Better alcohol labelling – A way to boost awareness of the risk between alcohol and cancer?
In a guest blog, Ben Chiu, Policy Manager (Prevention & Health Services, Devolved) at Cancer Research UK explores the link between alcohol and cancer, and why we need to encourage governments to consider requiring alcohol products to contain information to help consumers understand what is in their drinks.
Most of us in the UK don’t know about the link between alcohol and cancer. It’s disappointing, but not exactly surprising. Our environment is so saturated by positive messages about alcohol that even the voices of medics and health bodies on its potential health risks get drowned out.
It’s clear that something needs to change. There’s no silver bullet, but one way of increasing awareness would be requiring stronger, better labelling on alcohol products – potentially including cancer specific warnings.
Cancer itself is one of a number of serious health risk factors for drinkers. Everyone in the UK has a right to know about its link with alcohol. In 2018, Cancer Research UK published a study which found that drinking alcohol causes 11,900 cases of cancer each year in the UK. [i] Alcohol is linked with seven types of cancer. [ii][iii] There’s no safe level of drinking. The risk of oesophageal, oral cancers and breast cancer can increase even if you don’t drink much, while the risk of others increase if you drink a lot – such as bowel and liver cancer. [iv] [v][vi]
Although we know alcohol cause cancer, we don’t know exactly how. There are a few different theories.. One is that your body turns alcohol into a toxic chemical that damages DNA. Another is that alcohol increases levels of some hormones. And the last is that alcohol makes it easier for other cancer-causing chemicals to absorbed into your body.
Boosting awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer has been challenging. Research shows over two thirds of people aren’t aware of cancer as a risk factor for drinking, and even when people have a list of health conditions in front of them, a third still can’t make the link.[vii] Of all social groups, younger people and those from poorer communities are the least likely associate the two.
This is why we need to get creative and encourage the UK and devolved governments to consider requiring alcohol products to contain information that empowers the public to know what they’re drinking. Better labelling could range from information on the 14 unit a week drinking guidelines, to specific warnings clearly stating the link between alcohol and cancer.
There is an array of encouraging evidence showing that better labelling could have a positive impact.
A review commissioned by Alcohol Focus Scotland found evidence that health warnings on alcohol products led to increased intention to reduce drinking, with further evidence that health warnings that link to a specific disease were especially effective.[viii] Similarly, a real-world experiment in Canada has shown that better alcohol labels (which included a cancer warning, the low-risk drinking guidelines and the standard drinks per serving) can increase people’s knowledge of the link between alcohol and cancer[ix] and the low-risk drinking guidelines,[x] and prompt people to cut back on their drinking.[xi] [xii]
It’s vital that more is done to ensure better awareness of the link between alcohol and cancer. Moving forward, Cancer Research UK encourages the UK and devolved governments and researchers to explore what better labelling could look like in the UK, with a view to providing consumers with the information they need and want to make informed choices.
Ben Chiu, Policy Manager (Prevention & Health Services, Devolved) at Cancer Research UK. 29
29 October 2020.
[i] Brown, K. F. et al. (2018) The fraction of cancer attributable to modifiable risk factors in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom in 2015. Br. J. Cancer 118, 1130–1141 (pdf)
[ii] Bagnardi, V. et al. (2015) Alcohol consumption and site-specific cancer risk: a comprehensive dose-response meta-analysis. Br. J. Cancer 112, 580–593 (website)
[iii] Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet (London, England) 392, 1015–1035 (2018). (website)
[iv] IARC Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk to Humans (2010) Alcohol Consumption and Ethyl Carbamate. (website)
[v] Bagnardi, V. et al. (2013) Light alcohol drinking and cancer: a meta-analysis. Ann Oncol. 301-308 (website)
[vi] Corrao, G., Bagnardi, V., Zambon, A. & La Vecchia, C. (2004) A meta-analysis of alcohol consumption and the risk of 15 diseases. Prev. Med. (Baltim). 38, 613–619 (website)
[viii] Dimova, E. D. and Mitchell, D. (2020) Rapid literature review on the impact of health messaging and product information on packaging of alcohol and other unhealthy commodities (website)
[ix] Hobin, E. et al. (2020) Testing alcohol labels as a tool to communicate cancer risk to drinkers: a real-world quasi-experimental study in Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 249–261. (website)
[x] Schoueri-Mychasiw, N. et al. (2020) Examining the impact of alcohol labels on awareness and knowledge of national drinking guidelines: A real-world study in Yukon, Canada in Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 262–272. (website)