Professor Juergen Rehm

I think there are three really key findings.

The first is that very clearly, with more information and more biological evidence available, the impact of alcohol

has been underestimated in the past.

We find more and more causal links where alcohol plays a role in creating disease burden.

Let me give you one example of a disease condition which had not been linked to alcohol before in prior WHO or burden of disease reviews, and that is early onset dementia.

very clearly alcohol consumption and especially heavy drinking is linked to onset of dementia and it is linked to onset of dementia especially for early onset, meaning in the years of dementia before age 65.

Secondly, what we found is that a lot of the conditions are reversible, meaning we should not concentrate only that alcohol

causes that many burden, but we should also concentrate on that we can still do something.

We can, in some cases, completely reverse the damage, and in other cases, slow down the acceleration of alcohol attributable disease.

Okay, the risk is very disease specific.

There is no overall risk level and most diseases have an increasing risk with the more you drink.

So it is quite a clear relationship.

The more alcohol is consumed, the heavier the damage.

Now, that is not enough for people.

They want to know.

We want more.

Exactly.

The main thing is...

there is no risk-free level of alcohol.

One drink a day, one standard drink a day is clearly increasing the risk of female breast cancer.