Health Council: “There is no safe limit for alcohol consumption”

25 June 2026

Today, the Health Council issued a new advisory report to the Dutch minister of Health, Welfare and Sport regarding alcohol consumption and its consequences for health in a broad sense. The Health Council’s conclusion is: "There is no safe limit for alcohol consumption."

According to the Health Council, alcohol consumption affects physical and mental health, but it also has consequences for broader social and societal aspects of health. For instance, excessive alcohol consumption can increase the risk of accidents, unwanted behaviour (violence), problems at home and absenteeism from work. Alcohol consumption can also have consequences for psychosocial health and social functioning. Such effects were not explicitly addressed in the Health Council’s previous advisory reports on alcohol; they are in the new report.

Health organizations in the field of alcohol prevention consider the new Health Council advisory report clear. It contains factual health information regarding the risks of alcohol use, enabling the general adult to make informed choices. The message is clear: there is no safe limit for alcohol consumption. Therefore, any amount of alcohol is harmful. That’s why it is healthier and safer not to drink alcohol. Some risk groups, such as young people and pregnant women, have long been advised not to drink alcohol.

The new advice confirms what the World Health Organization and an increasing amount of scientific research show: alcohol is more harmful to the individual and society as a whole than previously assumed, even in small quantities. Scientific knowledge regarding the relationship between alcohol and cancer, in particular, has increased over the past decade. And there is no strong evidence for the claim that a glass of alcohol reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Hence, the World Health Organization states: "We cannot talk about a so-called safe level of alcohol use. It doesn’t matter how much you drink – the risk to the drinker’s health starts from the first drop of any alcoholic beverage."

The Health Council advises the government to discourage and denormalize alcohol consumption throughout the entire population. To achieve this, the council advocates for a broad package of measures, such as better information regarding health risks, cancer warnings on labels, a complete ban on alcohol in traffic, making alcoholic beverages more expensive and harder to obtain, and reduced marketing.

Furthermore, the Health Council explicitly warns against the significant influence of the alcohol industry on politics, by frequently sowing doubt regarding scientific consensus.

Sources: nrc.nl, trouw.nl, volkskrant.nl en nu.nl.

alcohol-en-gezondheid-in-brede-zin_1.pdf (838 kB)

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