Limits
Since 1995 the UK government has advised that regular consumption of 3–4 units a day for men, or 2–3 units a day for women, would not pose significant health risks, but that consistently drinking four or more units a day (men), or three or more units a day (women), is not advisable.
Previously (from 1992 until 1995), the advice was that men should drink no more than 21 units per week, and women no more than 14. (The difference between the sexes was due to the typically lower weight and water-to-body-mass ratio of women.) This was changed because a government study showed that many people were in effect "saving up" their units and using them at the end of the week, a phenomenon referred to as binge drinking. The Times reported in October 2007 that these limits had been "plucked out of the air" and had no scientific basis.
An international study of almost 6,000 men and 11,000 women found that persons who reported that they drank more than 2 units of alcohol a day had an increased risk of fractures compared to non-drinkers. For example, those who drank over 3 units a day had nearly twice the risk of a hip fracture.
Read more about this topic: Unit Of Alcohol
Famous quotes containing the word limits:
“Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we call Fate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In a virtuous action, I properly am; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)