More Than Half of Canadians Aged 15 and Older Are Drinking More Than Recommended, Researchers Say

A bartender hands over a glass of the Hillhaven Lodge Fireside cocktail behind a display of alcoholic beverages, including the Hillhave Lodge Old Fashioned and the Ciroc French 75, available at the 2017 Emmy Awards Governors Ball press preview in Los Angeles, Calif., on Sept. 7, 2017. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Over half of Canadians 15 years and older are drinking more than government-recommended guidelines say is safe, according to a new report.

A Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) article said that 57 percent of Canadians 15 years and older currently drink more than the amount recommended in Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health issued in 2023.

Additionally, numbers from a 2021 survey found about 18 percent of people 15 years and older “meet the clinical criteria for an alcohol use disorder (AUD) in their lifetime,” the Oct. 16 CMAJ article said.

According to the government guide , which comes with a public summary titled “Drinking less is better,” three to six “standard drinks” per week come with “moderate risk,” while more than six a week pose “increasingly high risk.” The guide says that not drinking carries “no risk” and “has benefits, such as better health, and better sleep,” and that one to two standard drinks a week constitute “low risk.”

Health risks of higher alcohol consumption include cancer, heart disease, and liver disease, the guide says.

“Alcohol consumption in Canada is markedly higher than the global average and above the median for high-income countries,” the CMAJ article authors wrote.

The authors also noted that alcohol use and alcohol use disorder (AUD) represent “major contributions to ill health in Canada, with research suggesting that more than 200 health consequences, including injuries and fatalities, are attributable to alcohol use.”

Yet, the article says, “evidence-informed interventions for AUD have not been widely implemented in Canada.”

They noted that this could be attributed to “structural problems such as stigma and lack of health care provider training.”

“Although national statistics are lacking, studies from Canadian provinces have shown that less than 2% of eligible patients receive evidence-based alcohol pharmacotherapies,” the authors wrote.

They developed a “national treatment guideline” to assist doctors, policy-makers, and other clinical and non-clinical personnel, as well as individuals affected by alcohol use.

“The major aim is to promote the use of evidence-based interventions to reduce alcohol-related harms,” the article said.

The guideline includes 15 recommendations that cover screening, diagnosis, withdrawal management, and ongoing treatment.

The recommendations also advocate for “the importance of considering the social determinants of health and incorporating harm reduction-, trauma- and violence-informed practice and culturally safe approaches as the standard of care for patients and families affected by alcohol use, high-risk drinking and AUD.”

The recommendations were developed with “a broad range of expertise,” the article authors said.

Health Benefits of Drinking Questioned

In March, scientists from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria published a paper after reviewing over 100 cohort studies, involving nearly 5 million participants, to examine whether health benefits thought to be attributed to light and moderate consumption of alcohol might be due to other factors, such as lifestyle and socioeconomic status.

Their findings, published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, indicate that bias in past studies may have affected the results.

“Light and moderate drinkers are systematically healthier than current abstainers on a range of health indicators unlikely to be associated with alcohol use,” the study authors wrote.

Moreover, another study published in JAMA Network on July 28 found that the number of women dying from alcohol-related conditions is on the rise.

Researchers found that from 2018 to 2020, women’s alcohol-attributed mortality rate increased by 14.7 percent per year while the rate among men increased by 12.5 percent.

George Citroner and Jane Nguyen contributed to this report.