TITLE:
Habitual alcohol consumers’ understanding of “moderate drinking”: A cross-sectional study in Japan
AUTHORS:
Tadahiro Ohtsu, Takako Shirasawa, Hirotaka Ochiai, Hiromi Hoshino, Akatsuki Kokaze
KEYWORDS:
Moderate Drinking; Amount of Alcohol Consumption; Drinking Frequency; Healthy Japan 21
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Preventive Medicine,
Vol.3 No.2,
April
30,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The Healthy Japan 21
project launched in FY2000 advocated dissemination of the knowledge that
intake of about 20 g of pure alcohol per day represents a “moderate” drinking
level. The aim of the present study was to explore various points that have
been debated with regard to “moderate drinking”. An Internet-based
questionnaire survey was administered to normal adults who habitually drank
alcohol one or more days a week, and we studied the amount of alcohol consumed
by those who responded that they did moderately without fail. Gender-based logistic
regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between “non-moderate drinking” on the one hand and drinking frequency, marital status, and
lifestyle habits on the other. Responses were obtained from 1088 persons (548
men and 540 women) (response rate: 57.6%), of whom 31.9% of the men and 53.6%
of the women responded that they drank moderately without fail. Among these
drinkers, 54.6% of the men and 78.2% of the women in reality drank moderately.
For both men and women, the odds ratio (OR) for “non-moderate drinking”
increased as drinking frequency increased. When “1 to 2 days a week” was
taken as the reference, the OR values for “every day” were 8.69 (95% confidence
interval [CI]: 4.98 - 15.14) for men and 7.35 (95% CI: 4.20 - 12.88) for women.
Furthermore, significantly higher ORs were observed among both single men and
single women, and among male smokers. The present study has clarified that
dissemination of knowledge about “moderate drinking” has not been effective.
Encouraging more awareness of the importance of drinking frequency is also
considered necessary.