Canadians drinking more than the global average: WHO

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Canadians aren’t drinking much more than they were a decade ago, the World Health Organization says, but are consuming more litres per person than the global average.

In its “Global status report on alcohol and health 2014,” the WHO noted that each person in the world over the age of 15 drinks 6.2 litres of pure alcohol every year.

In Canada, alcohol consumption per capita has remained fairly steady over the past 10 years, the report found.

When broken down by gender, Canadian males consume far more than the global average and more than twice as much as Canadian females, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the report referred to “heavy episodic drinking,” also known as “binge-drinking,” as the most harmful to health. Heavy episodic drinking is described as consuming at least 60 grams or more of pure alcohol on at least one occasion in the past 30 days.