What are the Australian guidelines for low-risk drinking?
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) currently recommends that healthy men and women consume no more than two standard drinks per day in order to reduce the lifetime risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury. The lifetime risk of harm from drinking alcohol increases with the amount consumed. On any single occasion, the NHMRC recommends men and women consume no more than four standard drinks on any one occasion in order to reduce the risk of short-term alcohol-related injury or harm. While the term binge drinking is most often used to describe drinking heavily over a short period, drinking continuously over a number of days or weeks is also considered binge drinking. Young people under the age of 18 are advised that not drinking alcohol is the safest option. Children under the age of 15 are at greatest risk of harm from alcohol consumption – early alcohol and other drug use can cause serious damage in the formative years when the brain is hard-wired for lif