The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday introduced a set of safe alcohol consumption standards suggesting men drink no more than an equivalent of 508ml of beer per day and women drink an equivalent of no more than 254ml of beer.
A ministry spokesperson discussed the standards at a joint news conference with the nation’s top hospitals and groups against substance use, at the ministry in Taipei.
The safe consumption standards use 254ml of beer containing 5 percent alcohol concentration or its equivalent as a unit to define safe alcohol consumption limits.
Photo: Hu Shun-hsiang, Taipei Times
The advisory makes a distinction between sex, as an average woman’s metabolism is less efficient at breaking down alcohol than that of an average man, the ministry’s Department of Mental Health Director Chen Liang-yu (陳亮妤) said.
As a result, the safe amount of alcohol consumption was defined as two units for men and one unit for women, she said.
The ministry provides a medical subsidy of NT$40,000 (US$1,295) per year for each individual quitting alcohol and plans to expand the program into communities, she said.
A prevention and treatment center for alcohol addiction is being planned and is expected to open in November, Chen said, adding that the facility is to be run by an outside organization instead of the ministry itself.
Citing the Centers for Disease Control’s 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the ministry said 49.7 percent of Taiwanese junior-high students and 72.8 percent of vocational high-school students have consumed alcohol.
Last year’s edition of the survey showed that 5.79 percent of Taiwanese engaged in harmful alcohol use, with a 0.4 percent increase in the share of women who engaged in harmful alcohol use, it said.
Based on the 2019 edition of the World Mental Health and Substance Use Report by the WHO, 80 percent of the world’s population was estimated to have consumed alcohol at some point in their lives, the ministry said.
According to the WHO report, 8.6 percent of the global population have experienced alcohol addiction and 43.9 percent of that demographic have been affected by at least one additional mental disorder, it said.
Men are significantly more likely to be affected by alcohol addiction than women, while people under 18 years of age accounted for 15 percent of alcoholics, showing that people are starting to drink at a younger age, it said.
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