“One for the road!”: How no- and low-alcohol drinks have taken the UK by storm
With Sober October and Dry January now common in our calendars, we are in the midst of a no-alcohol and low-alcohol boom. So-called ‘NoLo’ drinks are soaring in popularity, enabling people to reduce their consumption of ethanol.[1] And reflecting this trend, the UK sales of NoLo alcohol have doubled in the past five years.[2] Widely regarded as a cultural shift which is advantageous to public health, this rise comes in the wake of the Covid pandemic, where millions of people formed unhealthy drinking habits in lockdown. It is also largely driven by people’s favourite brands releasing alcohol-free versions of their staple drinks, rather than the single option of the classic Becks Blue 0.0%. However, there is some rightful scepticism of this growing movement as it stands. This article will look closer at the health benefits of NoLo drinks, as well as delve into some of the criticisms surrounding it.
It is true that many people resort to alcohol-free alcohol to reduce their own consumption of ethanol. Ethanol, the prime component of alcohol, acts to block the connections between neurotransmitters in our brain, which impairs normal functioning of behaviours.[3] It also acts as a neurotoxin in large volumes, effectively burning out brain cells and reducing brain volume over time.[4] Perhaps not surprisingly, this can lead to significant cognitive damage when alcohol is drunk in excess long-term. Alongside these severe and worrying effects of alcohol, people are very aware of the social costs of drinking – the hangovers, the monetary expense, and the mortification if one takes it a bit too far one night. All of these facets converge on the holy grail of NoLo drinks… but people don’t like the taste. To combat this problem in the case of beer, one Danish bio-industrial company launched a research initiative to engineer the flavour back into alcohol-free beer.[5] They did this by creating a process to derive hops from yeast – hops being the flowers responsible for the flavours and bitterness of beer. Typically, the kind of processes used to remove alcohol from beer also unintentionally strip these characteristic and volatile hops flavours. However, by metabolically engineering pathways into yeast peroxisomes (tiny structures in the cells of yeast), and re-fashioning them into geranyl disphosphate (a molecule used as the building blocks for many flavours in the food and cosmetics industries), they have effectively “unlocked the potential of yeast.”[6] This engineered yeast not only restores flavour to make a tasty alcohol-free beverage, but also reduces water usage by 10,000 fold and CO2 usage by 100 fold. This hefty save is achieved through bypassing the need to grow hops for production - this newly engineered process also reduces waste for the same reason.[7] Thus, their research also presents more sustainable and environmentally-friendly avenues for future alcohol production. With this kind of frontline research into better ways of creating alcohol, which is also ultimately better for our health, we are clearly entering a NoLo revolution.
Despite all of this encouraging research, one notable point about NoLo drinks is that they are often expensive – sometimes more even than their alcoholic equivalents.[8] Because of this, the purchase and consumption of NoLo alcohol is currently very contained to those with more expendable income. Because of this, there is a worry that NoLo drinks will unintentionally act to widen existing health inequalities, with those with lower incomes only able to afford “normal” alcohol and being subject to the health detriments that it brings. One recent study analysed purchases of NoLo drinks using widespread household and British survey data of individuals.[9] They found that those buying no-alcohol drinks tended to be younger, more affluent, and belonged to higher social grades – and that these correlations had increased from 2015 to 2020. These researchers described how “common to many health-related behaviours, it seems that it is the more affluent that lead the way in choosing zero or low alcohol products.” In this way, once again, people who are poorer receive the brunt of inaccessible healthy options which can lead to poorer health as a result. However, the conclusions of this study rely on survey data, which is subject to the lack of representativeness of the usual varieties. The individuals included tend to be more middle-class, white, educated, and notably, underage drinkers were not included because of a lack of survey data. These young people comprise a large amount of the drinking population too. Thus, though it presents a number of useful conclusions about how NoLo alcohol is unequally distributed in society, this research also has some limitations which could be furthered by more research.
It's not just consumers, but even the UK government has recognised what a positive impact NoLo drinks could have on the overall public health of the country. With research showing how adolescents in particular are very susceptible to the damaging effects of alcohol, due to their frontal lobe still developing until the age of twenty-five, there is extra incentive for the government to promote these kinds of drinks.[10] A recent report showed that the government has recently pledged to collaborate with the alcohol industry to increase the availability of low/no-alcohol drinks by 2025.[11] In 2019, the government directly said that they would be trying to “nudge the general drinking population towards lower strength alternatives.”[12] This kind of “nudge” strategy is favoured by psychologists as a way to guide or optimise choices for members of the public, with the ultimate aim of benefitting their health. Some regard this tactic as behavioural manipulation, but “nudge” proponents argue that it is done exclusively with the health of the consumer in mind. Critics of the NoLo nudge strategy explain how it frames members of the public as blame-worthy for any problems they might have with alcohol.[13] Whereas copious research shows how genetics, brain structure and individual life experiences shape an individual’s behaviour around alcohol. For example, a number of recent meta-analyses of thousands of people suggest that there are a number of genes significantly associated with problematic alcohol behaviour.[14][15] Even the act of drinking can rewire your brain to be more susceptible to drinking more.[16] Therefore this kind of strategy employed by the government misrepresents the causes of problematic alcohol behaviour, and unfairly holds individuals responsible. Whilst there is of course room for individual choice around drinking, none of these other factors are considered. Ultimately, it would be better to consider promoting NoLo drinks as one of several other strategies to help the public manage their drinking habits in a more healthy way. Indeed, effective strategies could also work on decentring alcohol as the dominant cultural norm – thus negating the need for NoLo drinks altogether.
However, given how UK society is currently structured, NoLo drinks overall present a positive movement towards healthy choices for consumers. Following the Covid pandemic and the resulting proliferation of unhealthy drinking behaviours, NoLo drinks are booming as the nation tries to cut down without losing the satisfaction of a drink. With copious research on how damaging alcohol is neurologically and cognitively, people are also starting to look for alternative ways to enjoy a pint with friends. Once these drinks are able to be formulated and sold more cheaply, then it will really start to lead to a widespread public benefit. And with promising new research injecting more flavour into these drinks – so they actually taste nice – no- and low- alcoholic drinks are on a skyrocketing trajectory.
References
[1] Anderson P, O'Donnell A, Kokole D, Jané Llopis E, Kaner E. (2021) Is Buying and Drinking Zero and Low Alcohol Beer a Higher Socio-Economic Phenomenon? Analysis of British Survey Data, 2015-2018 and Household Purchase Data 2015-2020. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 18(19):10347.
[2] Financial Times. (2022) UK sales of low-alcohol and no-alcohol beers almost double in 5 years. Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/e7ff0844-06f3-4b6a-89d8-ea2f2a329cff
[3] Brust, J. C. M. (2010). Ethanol and cognition: Indirect effects, neurotoxicity and neuroprotection: A review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 7, 1540–1557.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Melton, L. (2022) Synbio salvages alcohol-free beer. Nature Biotechnology. 40,8. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-01202-0
[6] Dusséaux, S., et al. (2020) Transforming yeast peroxisomes into microfactories for the efficient production of high-value isoprenoids. Applied Biological Sciences. 117(50). 31789-31799. Available at: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2013968117
[7] EvodiaBio. (2022) What is Yops? EvodiaBio. Available at: https://evodiabio.com/yops/#what-is-yops
[8] NIHR. (2021) Are zero and low alcohol alternatives just a drop in the ocean when it comes to tackling the harms of alcohol? Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria. Available at: https://arc-nenc.nihr.ac.uk/news/zero-and-low-alcohol-alternatives-just-a-drop-in-the-ocean/
[9] Anderson P, O'Donnell A, Kokole D, Jané Llopis E, Kaner E. (2021) Is Buying and Drinking Zero and Low Alcohol Beer a Higher Socio-Economic Phenomenon? Analysis of British Survey Data, 2015-2018 and Household Purchase Data 2015-2020. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 18(19):10347.
[10] Butler Centre for Research (2015) Alcohol's Effects on the Brain and Cognitive Improvement in Recovery. Hazelden Betty Ford. Available at: https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/education/bcr/addiction-research/alcohol-effects-brain-ru-515
[11] Nicholls, E. (2022) The Marketing and Consumption of No and Low Alcohol Drinks in the UK. Institute of Alcohol Studies. Available at: https://www.ias.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/The-Marketing-and-Consumption-of-No-and-Low-Alcohol-Drinks-in-the-UK-March-2022.pdf
[12] HM Government (2019). Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s. Presented to Parliament
by the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health and Primary Care July 2019. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/819766/advancing-our-health-prevention-in-the-2020s-accessible.pdf
[13] Bryant, L. (2020) Nudge theory and alcohol policy: how nudge frames drinkers and industry. Institute of Alcohol Studies Report. Available at: https://www.ias.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/rp43122020.pdf
[14] Kranzler, H. R. et al. (2019) Genome-wide association study of alcohol consumption and use disorder in 274,424 individuals from multiple populations. Nat. Commun. 10, 1499.
[15] Zhou, H., Sealock, J.M., Sanchez-Roige, S. et al. (2020) Genome-wide meta-analysis of problematic alcohol use in 435,563 individuals yields insights into biology and relationships with other traits. Nat Neurosci. 23. 809–818.
[16] Sullivan EV, Harris RA, Pfefferbaum A. (2010) Alcohol's effects on brain and behavior. Alcohol Res Health. 33(1-2). 127-43.