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.
‘OBNOXIOUS MAN’: The KMT’s Chen Ching-hui moved into Chung Chia-pin’s path atop the podium and reached for him before he grabbed at her legs with both hands Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) yesterday said he slipped and lost his balance, and did not know who was around him, after jumping onto the speaker’s podium at the legislature in Taipei. He apologized after a collision with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽), who moved to intercept him as he mounted the podium. There was pushing and shoving when the session started in the morning as KMT lawmakers attempted to block access to the podium to shield Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) so he could preside over the session. Video footage showed Chung step on a chair and
Hungarian Member of Parliament Tompos Marton said he considers Taiwan to be a better alternative to China as a strategic partner. Marton, who is the vice president of the opposition Momentum Party, made the remarks in an interview with the Central News Agency on Sunday. He draped a Republic of China flag across his shoulders to protest Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) visit to the capital city, Budapest, on Thursday last week, and openly voiced support for Taiwan on social media. He said in the interview that he wanted to remind the world that there were alternatives to China, and that “Taiwan has
A female physician at New Taipei City’s Shuang Ho Hospital was bullied and made to work for 32 consecutive hours by a senior colleague while pregnant before later having a miscarriage, an internal investigation found, the hospital said on Monday. The perpetrator has been removed from his post, the hospital said. The attending physician in the hospital’s Medical Imaging Department, identified by the pseudonym Y, earlier on Monday told reporters that she had been bullied by a male senior colleague who arranged shifts in her department. In January, shortly after she became pregnant, Y asked the department director if she could avoid overnight
Television presenter Mickey Huang (黃子佼) yesterday was indicted for allegedly possessing sexually explicit videos involving minors. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Huang after the High Prosecutors’ Office found deficiencies in its initial probe and on April 19 returned the case for further investigation. Earlier last month, Huang had been given two years of deferred prosecution. Prosecutors said that they found in their latest investigation that Huang had been a member of the online forum “Chuangyi Sifang” (創意私房) since Feb. 12, 2014. He purchased sexually explicit videos involving minors, and had downloaded images and videos that featured the breasts and sexual organs of young