Brits have the worst drinking problem in Europe

Britain has the largest number of "very high risk" drinkers in Europe, a new study reveals.

Nearly 1.2 million – or just under 3 per cent of those aged 15 to 64 – are drinking at levels that are knocking two to three decades off their lives.

A "very high" level of drinking was defined as consuming the equivalent of 1.2 - 1.5 bottles of wine every day.

Researchers described this group – around a fifth of problem drinkers – as "the most severely affected population of alcohol users ....chronically intoxicated" to the extent that their organs are being poisoned and their perception is impaired on a daily basis.

The desire to eat salty, fatty and unhealthy foods during or after a night of heavy drinking is called Drunchies or Drunk Munchies. A study was done to see how heavy drinking affects diet so as to have a better understanding of what people eat while drinking as well as the next day when they have a hangover. It was observed that while drinking they usually ate salty and fried items. And they were more likely to eat something before they went to bed after drinking alcohol than in general before they go to bed. They would opt for salty snack items and pizza as healthy food like vegetables which they would ordinarily easy weren't that appealing. It was also noted that after heavy drinking, people didn't have more water or other non-alcoholic beverages before bed which could cause dehydration. After a night of heavy drinking, people would resort to unhealthy, salty and fatty food instead of milk and dairy products, grains and vegetables, most likely because of the so called hangover cures which entails eating foods that "soak up" the alcohol. This results in Drunchies as after drinking, the blood glucose levels rise and fall which stimulates the brain to feel hungry. People need to be made aware of not only the negative effects of alcohol but also the effect it has on people's diet. A healthy diet needs to be promoted even after a night of binge drinking. For more updates follow @fuel__for__health #foodisthecauseandfoodisthecureofmostdisease #alcohol #beerbelly #bingedrinking #fattyfoods #unhealthy #dehydration #weightgain #heavydrinking #drunchies #alcoholproblems #hangover #obesity

A post shared by Nutrizione(@fuel__for__health) on Aug 8, 2018 at 4:37am PDT

A Canadian team looked at the highest-risk drinkers in Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The 2.78 per cent of the UK population classed as being ‘very high risk' was the highest of all 13 EU countries in the study.

The research is published in Addiction Biology.

Daily Mail