annual discourse: alcohol and health

Professor Ian Gilmore

Professor Ian Gilmore MD PRCP spoke on Alcohol and Health at the Chowen lecture theatre, BSMS, on Wednesday 5 December 2007.

'This is a very serious subject, of enormous importance to all health organisations in the UK.'
Quintin Barry, Chairman of South Downs Health NHS Trust

Professor Gilmore began his engaging lecture with the information that 30-40% of adults in the UK drink at hazardous levels, and this is the main cause of A and E attendances. While the morbidity associated with most illnesses in the UK is decreasing, alcohol-related morbidity is on the rise, with the rate of cirrhosis doubling among 15-44 year olds in the last decade.

He looked at how the pattern of drinking is significant in the acute harm caused by alcohol, such as injuries caused through drunkenness; but the amount drunk is more important when looking at chronic diseases. There are geographic patterns to drinking, and differences between ethnic groups; while there is little variation between the drinking levels of different social classes, the most harmful levels tend to be in deprived areas.

Exploring ways of reducing the health burden, he estimated that raising prices by 10% could result in a 30% reduction in alcohol-related deaths. Taxes could be differentiated according to strength or target market. Meanwhile reducing licensing hours, advertising (four alcohol ads were shown during the last football match he watched on TV), and impulse buying (for example restricting alcohol sales in supermarkets to a single till) would decrease excessive consumption.

Professor Gilmore pointed out how attitudes to smoking have changed over the last few years and left his audience with the hope that changes to price, access and promotion could achieve the same benefits for heavy drinking.

Professor Gilmore is President of the Royal College of Physicians and a Consultant Physician at the Royal Liverpool Hospital. He graduated in 1971 from Cambridge and St Thomas'.