Live Longer No 4

4 Drink in moderation One or two units a day may help reduce heart disease, but most people drink a lot more and it is doing us an increasing amount of damage. Alcohol can cause cirrhosis, which is now the 12th-highest cause of death and ill health in western Europe, fatty liver disease and liver cancer. It is also implicated in other cancers – mouth, throat and breast. And then there are all the accidents and fights in which people get hurt or killed.