NORTH-EAST health campaigners have urged regular drinkers to wake up to the risk they are running after researchers confirmed that even moderate drinking can cause liver cancer.

It follows publication by the World Cancer Research Fund of the findings of a survey covering 8.2m people which established that three drinks a day can cause liver cancer.

The World Cancer Fund recommends men should try to limit their alcohol intake to two drinks per day and women to one drink.

Colin Shevills, director of Balance, the North East Alcohol Office, said: “The link between alcohol and cancer is undeniable yet it is something of which many people aren’t fully aware. This research from the World Cancer Research Fund helps highlight the important fact that as little as three alcoholic drinks a day can be enough to cause liver cancer.

“While alcohol-related liver cancer hospital admissions are not particularly high, they are increasing. Admissions in the North-East have increased by 27 per cent (64 to 82) during the same period.

“A recent survey found that while almost nine in 10 North-Easterners believe it is important to know how alcohol can affect health, less than half were aware of the links between alcohol and cancer. This is particularly worrying when we know that almost two in five people in the region are drinking at increasing or higher risk levels.

“Like tobacco, alcohol is a group one carcinogen,” he added.

Mr Shevills called on the Government to run campaigns making people aware of the harm alcohol can cause and make health warnings compulsory.

“Most people who suffer alcohol-related health problems are not alcoholics or binge drinkers. They are people who have been drinking at or above the recommended limits on a daily or almost daily basis over a number of years.”