Ban the booze for a longer life: The key to avoiding illness is cutting out alcohol

Ban the booze for a longer life: The key to avoiding illness is cutting out alcohol

BANNING the booze for just a month can prevent serious sickness later in life.

 

It's not exactly welcome news as we approach the silly season, but a new study is giving Brits good reason to ditch the drink. 

The research from University College London has shown that adults who abstained from alcohol for a month had improved liver function, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

 

Participants of the study, which monitored 102 relatively health men and women in their 40s taking part in a 'dry January' campaign, also reduced their risk of developing diabetes and liver disease. 

The women had been drinking an average of 29 units of alcohol per week (more than four units per day) and the men 31 units, which both exceed government guidelines. 

 

After four weeks, their liver scarring had been reduced by 12.5 per cent and their insulin resistance, which is a measurement of diabetes risk, was down by 28 per cent. 

In case that wasn't enough to make you pause before your next pint, the findings also revealed short-term benefits including weight loss, improved concentration and better sleep. 

Professor Kevin Moore, who co-authored the study, said the improvements were 'certainly substantial' and that health bodies should be 'very interested' in the results. 

However, he believes more work needs to be done to establish the long-lasting effects of cutting out alcohol consumption. 

 

Cutting out alcohol can help you live a longer, healthier life

 

More work needs to be done to establish the long-lasting impacts of giving up alcohol

 

He said: "Does it have a sustained impact? We think we will find people drink less going forward.

"The next thing would be to extend dry January beyond one month to two months, three months." 

Gautam Mehta, a liver specialist who oversaw the study, said the findings were exciting. 

The researcher told the Daily Mail: "There are some findings that will be pretty novel. It's an important study which shows the benefit from a month's abstinence.

"What we can't say is how long those benefits are, how durable those benefits are." 

According to official alcohol consumption guidance, men should not regularly exceed four units a day and women should not have more than three.