WHO recommends widespread use of health warnings on alcohol bottles

A recent report from the World Health Organization Europe calls for mandatory health warnings on alcohol bottles, similar to what has been done for tobacco products. The document highlights the importance of such a measure, given that the available data indicate that the population has very limited knowledge of the health risks associated with alcohol consumption.

Europe region, biggest consumer of alcohol in the world

Reducing harmful alcohol consumption is one of the targets set by the European Beating Cancer Plan. Indeed, the high alcohol consumption recorded in the WHO European Region is a major health issue : of the ten countries in the world that consume the most alcohol, seven are European. Furthermore, in 2019, the average alcohol consumption per capita in the European Union among those aged over 15 was 11.0 litres of pure alcohol per year, twice the world average.[1].

The health burden of alcohol consumption

The report states that alcohol consumption causes the premature death of nearly 5% of the European population, while it is responsible for one in four deaths among people aged 20 to 40. In total, alcohol is responsible for the deaths of 800,000 Europeans each year. The authors of the report point out in particular that alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 diseases, injuries and other health problems, including at least seven types of cancer: cancer of the mouth, pharynx, oesophagus, liver, larynx, colon, rectum and breast in women. While low alcohol consumption has long been presented as harmless, particularly by industrialists, it is now established that no alcohol consumption is without danger for health[2]. Thus, in 2020, 12 % of all new cases of alcohol-attributable cancer and 34 % of alcohol-attributable female breast cancers were observed in people consuming 20 g of alcohol per day or less, the equivalent of two small glasses of wine. More generally, alcohol consumption is the cause of more than 110,000 cases of cancer per year in the European Union.

A health impact unknown to a large proportion of Europeans

However, the impact of alcohol consumption on health is largely unknown among Europeans. According to a study presented in the report and conducted in 14 countries in the European region, only 15% of respondents indicated that they were aware of the link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer, while more than six out of ten respondents said they were unaware of the impact of alcohol on the development of colon cancer. In this perspective, the report highlights the key role that health warnings on alcohol bottles could play in informing consumers about the risks involved. Furthermore, health warnings appear to be an inexpensive awareness-raising tool for public authorities, capable of reaching the entire population concerned, and making it possible to reduce the attractiveness of products while strengthening public support for policies to combat alcohol consumption. To date, only a few European countries have legislation regarding health warnings on the labels of alcohol containers: France, Germany, Ireland and Lithuania. However, in France, this warning, limited to a pictogram relating to alcohol consumption by pregnant women, is considered insufficiently visible, due to its size and location on the label.[3]From May 2026, Ireland will be the first country in the European Union to display a warning referring to the impact of alcohol consumption on the risk of developing cancer.

The affixing of health warnings is an effective public health prevention measure. Applied to tobacco products, health warnings help to neutralize part of the attractiveness of the packet, designed by manufacturers as an advertising medium. In France, the generalization of health warnings has been effective from a public health perspective, in that it has contributed to the denormalization of tobacco, and in that it has been followed by an increase in attempts to quit by smokers.

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[1] WHO, Alcohol health warning labels: a public health perspective for Europe, 02/14/2025, (accessed 02/17/2025)

[2] WHO, No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health., 04/01/2023, (accessed 17/02/2025)

[3] Millot A, Serra M, Gallopel-Morvan K. How the alcohol industry fought against pregnancy warning labels in France. A press coverage analysis spanning 20 years. Front Public Health. 2022 Aug 26;10:933164. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.933164. PMID: 36091564; PMCID: PMC9458884.