Many consumers are reevaluating their relationships with alcohol, whether by cutting it out entirely during Dry January or by simply trying to scale back year-round.
Now, new research hints at another possible way to curb consumption. When pubs and bars in England removed the largest serving size of wine by the glass from their menus, patrons drank nearly 8 percent less wine, according to a new paper published in the journal PLOS Medicine.
That may not seem like much, but the researchers argue this small, easy-to-implement change could nudge individuals toward drinking less alcohol and improve overall population health.
Excessive alcohol consumption has been linked with a variety of health issues, from cancer to liver disease to depression, the team points out. The harmful use of alcohol is also responsible for roughly three million deaths worldwide each year, a number that represents 5.3 percent of all deaths.
In the United States, excessive alcohol consumption contributed to one in eight deaths of adults between the ages of 20 and 64, from 2015 to 2019. The number was even higher for Americans ages 20 to 49, with alcohol to blame for about one in five deaths.
Past studies have found that an array of environmental factors influence how much alcohol consumers drink, including advertising and glass size. The researchers were curious to know whether serving size availability at bars and pubs could also have an effect.
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