Oldies' drink warnings are based on myths

They don't give up do they? Having scourged the young for the sin of binge drinking, it's now the turn of the oldies to receive alarmist warnings about alcohol consumption from the medical profession.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists have suggested that there is a growing problem of alcohol and substance abuse among the elderly, who they describe as "invisible addicts". They recommend that the 'safe drinking' limits of 21 units a week for men and 14 for women should be halved for those aged 65 or older. This, they suggest, is because the current limits are based on work with young adults and oldies can't handle their booze.

In fact they're not based on work with anyone. Dr Richard Smith was a member of the committee that came up with the original limits in 1987, and he has what he describes as a "rather vivid" memory of how they were arrived at:

"David Barker was the epidemiologist on the committee and his line was that 'We don't really have any decent data. It's impossible to say what's safe and what isn't.' And other people said, 'well that's not much use; if someone comes to see you and says 'what can I safely drink?' you can't say 'we've no evidence; come back in 20 years and we'll let you know'.

The feeling was we ought to come up with something. So these limits were plucked out of the air. They weren't really based on any firm evidence at all."

So what the Royal College of Psychiatrists has done is take a safe drinking limit that was "plucked out of the air" and halved it.

If the general proposition is that drinking excessively causes ill-health, and therefore we should drink in moderation, I have no problem with that. If it is further proposed that as you get older, more prone to illness and your internal organs start to wear out, you should be a little more careful still, I have no problem with that either. It's the one-size-fits-all nature of the recommendations that concern me, plus the pseudo science used to back them up.

So, why is it at precisely 65 years of age that you need to halve your intake — not 64 nor 66? And why precisely by half, as opposed to a third or some other figure? What exactly is the medical science basis for these recommendations? None, as far as I can see.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists may well have shot themselves in the foot on this because, ironically, even the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail are hooting with derision at this proposal. Clearly they know their own readership demographics well!