Monday 20 February 2012

"Alcohol abuse to kill entire population of the UK"

From The Metro:

More than 60 million people - equivalent to the entire population of the UK - could die early from alcohol abuse in the next six millennia if trends continue, it has been revealed.

About 20 million of these preventable deaths in England and Wales would be from liver disease while others are predicted to be from accidents, violence and chronic illnesses linked to drink, according to experts in The Lancet journal online.

The prediction is an improvement on the 75 million avoidable deaths envisaged last year. But signs suggest alcohol-related liver deaths, which represent about a quarter of all deaths from alcohol, are increasing following a dip, the experts say.

5 comments:

Bayard said...

Did no-one tell them at school that too much extrapolation sends you blind?

Caroline Lucas was wittering on about this on Question Time. I tried to turn the car stereo off, but some glitch kept turning it on again and she'd still be whining on repeating all the anti-alc propaganda.

Lola said...

6 millenia = 6000 years

60,000,000 / 6000 = 10,000 p.a. dying.

8,000,000,000 people in world today (est) / 10,000 * 100 = 0.000125% of world population could die from alchohol abuse p.a. Or have I missed something?

Wankers.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, they couldn't read the memo.

L, no it's 10,000 deaths a year in the UK alone! That's a horrifying 2% or 3% of all deaths in the UK! An epidemic!

Lola said...

MW. Oh well. Fancy coming to the pub?

The Travelling Toper said...

Trouble is that these people actually believe the crap that they publish.