Comments on: A beer over dinner at home favourite way to booze in Japan

By: Temperatures of drinks in Japan | 世論 What Japan Thinks

Temperatures of drinks in Japan | 世論 What Japan Thinks — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:55:58 +0000

[...] done alcohol consumption earlier in the week, today I take a look at a survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into temperature of [...]

By: Ken Y-N

Ken Y-N — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:40:18 +0000

Yes, I'd like to know the quantity consumed too, especially by the 20% who drink almost every day. Just to muddy the waters, there was an article on the BBC today on how a bottle of wine a day is good for you, or at least good for warding off heart attacks.

By: ian

ian — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:22:53 +0000

I don’t suppose the survey asked how much Japanese respondents drink did it?
The BBC article you cited lists these recommendations:
Men should drink no more than 21 units of alcohol per week
Women should drink no more than 14 units of alcohol per week
One unit of alcohol is half a pint of beer or a small glass of wine
Binge drinking is classed as consuming more than 10 units of alcohol in a single session for men and seven units for women

Half a pint of beer is about 236 ml, or about 2/3 of a can of beer (355 ml) in Japan. Which means the recommended alcohol limit is 14 cans of beer per week. Hmm…if a guy drank 2 cans of beer every night at dinner, they would be hitting the limit. Sounds like quite a lot, but I guess there are people who do drink that much in Japan.

What I really wonder though is what factors are considered when calculating the cost of alcoholism.