Abstract
Objectives To investigate the effectiveness of advice to drinkers using“weekly alcohol consumption”during a health checkup for Japanese adult males.
Design A controlled trial.
Setting and Participants A physician advised 335 male drinkers to reduce drinking quantity during a health checkup based on“weekly alcohol consumption”, and we were able to follow 279 subjects a year later.
Measurement and Results We compared a new method using“Weekly Alcohol Consumption”with the conventional method by making the drinking improvement rate an index. We also investigated the change in quantities of 10 variables. The drinking improvement rate by the new method (48.4%; complete improvement rate 16.5%) was significantly higher than that of the conventional method (13.3%; complete improvement rate 5.4%) (p<0.001) . The change quantities of gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol and triglyceride by the new method were also more improved than those by the conventional one.
Conclusions We consider that the drinking advice using “weekly alcohol consumption” was more useful than the conventional one which is using“2-drinks (50 g ethanol or less) per day” and“establishment of alcohol-free days”.
