In January, England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, unveiled the Government’s new alcohol guidelines.
And it’s fair to say that they received mixed reviews. Some welcomed being better informed about the健康风险– including increased cancer risk – associated with drinking alcohol. Others have expressed the opinion that guidelines put the UK on the path towards becoming a‘nanny state’。
作为一个致力于击败癌症的组织，我们在以前的训练营中。这样的指南不会告诉人们该怎么做。取而代之的是，他们提供有关人们如何通过告知他们饮酒风险来减少癌症风险的信息。当它们启动时，我们写了关于updated guidelines，男女14个单位的每周指南，以及这对帮助人们有用cut their cancer risk。
但是人们这样做有多容易呢？作为一个国家，我们是否真正了解酒精与不同类型的癌症之间的联系？
The公众咨询关于政府应如何沟通这些准则今天关闭。还有我们的预防癌症政策研究中心, an in-house research team at Cancer Research UK, working with Dr Penny Buykx’s team at theUniversity of Sheffield’s Alcohol Research Group, have attempted to find out more about people’s awareness of the risks of alcohol.
他们的latest study- 在制定新准则之前进行 - 揭示了公众对酒精危害和人们对准则的了解的令人担忧的差距。
The标题图表明，有十分之九的人不会将酒精与癌症的风险增加联系。而且，如果我们更深入地研究，就会出现更多令人担忧的差距。
Alcohol and cancer
我们已经写了很多关于酒精与癌症之间联系的信息 - 从讨论证据表明它会导致癌症, to talking about how减少饮酒会降低您的风险发展疾病。
当涉及到酒精如何以及为什么引起癌症的科学时，情况并不清楚。但是有一些主要理论we blogged about recently。
Regardless of the underlying mechanism, we know that 12,800 cases of cancer arelinked to alcohol each year in the UK。
To find out how much the public knows about the link, we worked with Dr Buykx’s team to survey 2,100 people in England, asking questions about their knowledge and use of alcohol guidelines – as well as their awareness of which health conditions are linked to alcohol.
Public misconceptions of alcohol and cancer
当我们的研究参与者被要求命名与饮酒过多有关的健康状况时，只有13％的人提到癌症。然后向他们展示了健康状况的清单，并要求命名那些可能是由于喝过多酒精而引起的。几乎一半（47％）选择了癌症。但这仍然是低水平的意识，而95％的人选择了肝病，还有59％的人选择糖尿病。很大一部分（84％）也认识到酒精会导致肥胖和体重过剩。
但是，当被问及哪种类型的癌症与酒精有关，并且在哪种水平饮酒会增加这些癌症的风险时，人们更加不确定。
在这项研究中，询问人们认为他们认为与酒精有关的七种不同类型的癌症中的哪种。在这七种癌症中，有四种与饮酒有关（bowel,胸部,mouth and throat， 和肝脏）和三个不是（脑,bladder和ovarian）。下图显示，对风险或缺乏风险的认识有所不同。例如，只有18％的人正确地回答了乳腺癌与酒精有关。
Each year in the UK, alcohol causes 3,200 cases of breast cancer, the second largest amount after bowel cancer, with 4,800 cases down to alcohol each year. Yet only around four in 10 people (40 per cent) linked alcohol with bowel cancer, and just under half with mouth and throat cancers.
Conversely, over half believed that bladder cancer was linked to alcohol, when research hasn’t actually found a link.
接下来，要求参与者what levelof drinking they thought a person’s risk of developing cancer starts to increase for each type. While eight in 10 people (80 per cent) had correctly said that liver cancer was linked to drinking alcohol, the majority thought this was linked to lower levels of drinking than appears to be the case.
In the UK, around 400 cases of liver cancer are linked to alcohol each year (for context, there are nearly 5,500 cases each year overall). High levels of drinking are thought to trigger liver cancer because this causes conditions – such as肝硬化– that damage the liver’s ability to repair itself.
公众对酒精指南的了解
Taken together, these results suggest that the public may not be too well informed about the health risks associated with drinking alcohol. If this is the case, simply offering new guidelines on drinking isn’t going to be enough to help people to understand the health risks.
但是它们是一个很好的起点。政府有责任告知公众健康风险，并提供这些准则，以帮助人们对自己的健康做出决定。
新准则清楚地表明，在癌症风险方面没有安全的饮酒水平。但是我们的研究表明，如果准则将产生预期的效果，则需要改善风险的认识。
Until the recent announcement, thegovernment’s alcohol guidelineshad not been reviewed since 1995.
Our survey reveals that even though the guidelines haven’t changed in 20 years, only one in 10 men and one in seven women could correctly identify the guidelines for their own gender, and reported using this sometimes to keep track of their own drinking.
Now that the guidelines have changed to 14 units per week for both men and women, can we expect the public to know what they are? Our survey suggests that, without further work, this is unlikely.
So it’s important we – and others – continue to raise awareness of the health risks of drinking alcohol, and especially the links to cancer.
通过帮助人们理解准则，我们希望人们能够感觉到他们拥有所需的信息来决定何时喝酒以及多少。最终，这将导致一个更健康的国家。
注释