Alcohol consumption limits should be lowered for over 65s, say psychiatrists

Government guidelines on safe limits for drinking should be lowered for people aged over 65 years to 1.5 units a day for men and 1 unit a day for women, the Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends.

Our Invisible Addicts, written by the college’s working group on older people’s substance misuse, says that physiological and metabolic changes associated with ageing mean that the current safe limits are too high for elderly people. It says that binge drinking should be defined for this age group as more than 4.5 units in a single session for men and more than 3 units for women.

Launching the report, Tony Rao, consultant in old age psychiatry at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, said, “For a given volume …