Drinking at home 'could be more dangerous than in pubs'

People drinking at home should be careful of how much alcohol they are actually consuming, it has been suggested.

Dr Dawn Harper from Drinkaware said that more people than ever are drinking at home, perhaps to beat the rising prices of drinks in pubs, but that it is easier to overdo it without accurate measures of alcohol.

"If you are pouring drinks at home you are not pouring to standard measures and are almost certainly giving yourself more per drink [than] if you were buying it over a bar," she warned.

Dr Harper added that while people may not feel the effects of this yet, they could be storing up a number of health problems for later in life, including strokes, breast cancer and throat cancer.

According to research carried out on behalf of Drinkaware, seven million people in England currently drink more than the recommended daily two to three drinks for women and three to four for men.

Men were found to be more likely to exceed the guideline amounts (40 per cent) than women (33 per cent).

However, only 19 per cent of people in the UK could actually indentify the recommended amounts.

The Drinkaware trust is about to launch a new campaign entitled Alcohol: How Much is Too Much in order to raise awareness of the dangers of excessive drinking.