Alcohol units and the liver
Regularly drinking more than the lower-risk levels of alcohol (defined by the NHS as 14 units a week, spread over several days, with two or three alcohol-free days every week, ideally consecutively) can seriously harm your liver. These guidelines, which are strongly supported by the British Liver Trust, are the same for men and women.
If you are generally healthy, eat a well-balanced diet and take regular exercise, sensible drinking (as outlined above) shouldn’t lead to problems with the liver.
It is a lot easier to overdrink than many people realise, putting vast numbers of us in danger of alcohol-related illnesses.
What is a unit of alcohol?
Because there are different types of alcohol which vary in strength, a unit is the simplest way to express how much alcohol is in a drink.
One unit is to equal to 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol. See our chart below to see how many units are different drinks.
