Washington, May 14 (IANS): The bubbly flows freely among Canadians and Americans. In a latest survey released by the WHO, Canadians are drinking more alcohol than most of the rest of the world - followed by Americans. Drinking is also going up in India.
“The amount of drinking around the world is going up, especially in India and China, where incomes are rising and alcohol marketing is active,” the report noted.
Americans drink 7.5-9.9 litres of alcohol per person per year while Canadians gulp down more than 12.5 litres each as do Russians and Australians, the data revealed.
Africans do not drink as much as Americans and residents of Islamic countries drink the least of all.
Worldwide, almost a quarter (24.8 percent) of all alcohol consumed is in the form of unrecorded alcohol, the World Health Organisation (WHO) report said.
Unrecorded alcohol is alcohol made at home, alcohol meant for other purposes (like medical) or smuggled.
Around the world, just over half of recorded alcohol intake is in the form of spirits.
Next comes beer, accounting for about 35 percent of consumption, and 55 percent of drinking in WHO's Americas region.
Overall, wine consumption comprises just eight percent of global consumption.
The WHO report also took a look at how drinkers drink and what that means for their health risk.
“Alcohol consumption also contributes to about 10 percent of the disease burden due to tuberculosis, epilepsy, haemorrhagic stroke and hypertensive heart disease in the world,” the report added.
Drinking with meals or drinking daily or nearly daily presented the least health risk to the drinker, the report said.