Even drinking small amounts of alcohol increases your cancer risk.
No amount of alcohol can be considered safe. However, practicing ‘safe drinking’ can reduce your risk of harm. Follow this advice to drink safely.
It is possible to live a healthy life and drink at the same time if you know how alcohol affects the body. If you want to lower your chance of getting a disease or injury from drinking, you should follow The Australian Guidelines.
The Australian Guidelines recommend healthy adults should drink a maximum of 10 standard drinks a week, and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one day.
A normal drink has about 10 grams of ethanol, which is the same amount of alcohol that your body can break down in an hour. You can handle different amounts of alcohol based on your age, weight, sex, and how you feel at the time.
If you drink more than the recommended amount, you may be more likely to get hurt or have a hangover. Regularly drinking too much also makes you more likely to get long-term health problems. Some of these are: