British women top the list as the biggest female binge drinkers in the world, according to data from a new worldwide health report.
The research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicated that 26 per cent of British women were consuming at least six drinks once a month.
This was matched only by Denmark, also at 26 per cent, followed closely by Luxembourg, 24 per cent, and Germany on 22 per cent.
When the sexes are combined more than a third (35%) of adults across the UK report binge drinking at least once a month and only Romania and Denmark have worse heavy drinking rates.
Across the 33 countries studied, the average proportion of adults who said they were heavy drinkers at least once a month was 19%. This ranged from just 3% in Turkey to 37% in Denmark.
The report, called OECD’s ‘Health at a Glance 2023’, said that high alcohol intake “is a major risk factor for heart diseases and strokes, liver cirrhosis and certain cancers, but even low and moderate alcohol consumption increases the long-term risk of these diseases.”
Dr Richard Piper, chief executive of Alcohol Change UK, said: “Alcohol causes too much harm here in the UK. But this is totally avoidable.
“There is an overwhelming need for the Government to introduce measures that we know will reduce alcohol harm and save lives such as proper controls on alcohol marketing, introducing minimum unit pricing in England like we already have in Scotland and Wales, and clearer alcohol labelling.”
Dr Amos Ogunkoya, an NHS GP, told Sky News: “We know that binge drinking is one of the worst things you can do because a lot of people think we have the guidance of the units, which is about 14 a week, and doing that in a short amount of sittings is not good for you.
He added: “It can affect your general health and can be quite damaging to the body and gives you a risk of having long term problems in the future. Binge drinking is one of the worst things you can do. It is concerning and we’ve had a problem with binge drinking for some time now.”
The OECD report also shows there are more obese adults in the UK compared with the OECD average. Obesity prevalence was 28 per cent in the UK - higher than the OECD average of 25.7 per cent.
The report also found adults in the UK were more likely to report vaping compared with other countries, but have lower than average smoking rates. Just 12.7 per cent are current smokers in the UK, compared with an OECD average of 16%.
But almost one in 20 adults (4.9 per cent) said they vaped regularly, compared with an average of 3.2 per cent.
