According to a new study in Lancet, the British medical journal, just as tobacco a decade ago, alcohol is damaging global health, with one in 25-deaths around the world is caused by alcohol consumption.
 
Taken in 2000, the last global statistical analysis of damage caused by alcohol; 3.2% deaths worldwide were found to be the result of alcohol consumption.
 
Published last Saturday, the new study, a part of the Lancet’s ‘Alcohol and Global Health’ series, using the same statistical tools as the previous one, found the 2004 figure had increased by 0.6%.  Alcohol-related causes of death include accidents, violence, poisoning, mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, suicide, stroke and many others.
 
Jürgen Rehm, lead author of the study told TIME, the increase is primarily the result of more women taking up drinking.  According to him, the increase in alcohol-related death rate is particularly troubling, because researchers took into account the cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking, including the fact that a majority of the world’s population abstains from alcohol.
 
But, as the economies of countries like India and China improve and people have more disposable income, it will all change and unless steps are taken to combat the trend, it is likely to further increase the death rate.  
 
‘Alcohol consumption, particularly among women, is linked to economic growth,’ says Rehm.  ‘In countries like the U.K. and Norway, you have women consuming over 30% of (all the alcohol consumed).  In India, on the other extreme, women consume less than 5%.  The higher the wealth of a country, the higher the percentage of women drinking alcohol.’
 
Proving how damaging alcohol abuse can be, a separate study in the Lancet found that between 1990 and 2001, drinking caused over half the deaths among adult Russians, following the unstable years after the Soviet Union collapsed.  That study of some 60,000 residents in three Russian cities found, more people dying from a certain disease, not only due to obvious alcohol-related illnesses like liver cancer, but also tuberculosis and pneumonia, which may be partly a result of weak immunity caused by excessive alcohol consumption, the study’s authors say.
 
Globally, average alcohol consumption per person is the equivalent of about 1.6 gallons (6.2-litres) of pure ethanol a year, or about 12-units a week.  Europeans at 3.1-gallons (11.9 litres) of ethanol (21.5-units a week) were found to have the highest annual consumption per person.  Compare that to 2.5-gallons (9.4-litres) a year (18-units a week) in North America and 0.2-gallons (0.7 litres) a year (1.3-units a week) in the eastern Mediterranean, which has the lowest levels.
 
According to Rehm’s study, these figures mean that the effect of alcohol is about the same as that of smoking in 2000, worldwide.  The study also shows that despite the prevalence of tobacco use in the developing world, alcohol is the No. 1 risk factor in 27-emerging economies.
 
To conclude, the effects of alcohol consumption are as harmful as smoking.