Health effects of alcohol in the UK significantly improving.

In a paper published this week in The Lancet, Professor Ian Gilmore a former president of the Royal College of Physicians, showed that the UK is one of the better countries in Europe to suffer from liver fatalities.

He says that most of these deaths are caused by alcohol abuse, and that there is a particular problem in the UK where liver death rates have more than doubled since 1986 and are much higher than in countries with similar drinking cultures.

Even with doubling the UK is well below the European and world averages and only slightly higher than countries such as France and Italy that have seen massive reductions over the last 30 years.

Chris Hawkey from the British Society of Gastroenterology said “The recently announced 6 per cent fall in alcohol related deaths between 2008 and 2009 is very welcome, and reflects recent falls in population level alcohol consumption.