NHS is deeply concerned with the slackening health figures as much as it is concerned with the huge expenditures that arise due to illnesses. It's almost like an epidemic, and what is worse for its spread is the Labour's 24 hour drinking laws, apparently a silent approval for binge drinkers.
The British Society of Gastroenterology has spoken of an increase in alcohol related disease in the coming years. In a statement, the society has expressed "As a nation, we are drinking more than for 90 years and there is a lag between consumption and cirrhosis. Already we have seen a 350 per cent increase in cirrhosis between 1970 and 1998, and this figure is 900 per cent for those under 45 years of age. It is important to anticipate that the burden from alcohol, not only alcoholic liver disease but also alcohol pancreatitis, is going to increase markedly over the coming decade or more."
Professor Elwyn Elias, the society's president and a gastroenterologist based at University Hospital, Birmingham, said "There is a 20 to 30-year lag between what people drink and hospitals filled with the consequences. Binge-drinking can have a sudden effect, but you can also kill yourself in 20 years, by drinking what some people consider a reasonable amount. The evidence is that drinking fell away in the 1930s and 1940s but it's been climbing since the 1960s and there's no sign of a plateau."
