People should have at least two days a week completely clear of alcohol, a group of MPs says.
It is one of the recommendations in a report by the Commons science and technology committee, which is calling for a review of all government guidelines on alcohol in the UK.
It says there are “sufficient concerns” about the recommendations on how much people should drink.
The report has been welcomed by charities and public health experts.
Advice on the maximum units of alcohol that should be consumed was introduced in 1987 – 21 units in a week for men and 14 for women.
In 1995, the advice was changed to recommend that men did not regularly drink more than three to four units per day. The figures were two to three units for women. It also says that after heavy drinking people should leave 48 hours for the body to recover.
The report questioned whether this “appeared to endorse daily drinking”.
It said having two alcohol-free days would “would enforce the message that drinking every day should be avoided”.
It also says there “could be merit” in setting a lower limit for older people in the same manner as there are more specific rules for children and pregnant women.
The idea of increasing the daily limit, was however, ruled out.
The report highlighted problems when it came to understanding how many units of alcohol there are in a drink.
A survey by the Office for National Statistics suggested that 90% of people had heard of units, yet fewer than one in three knew how much one unit of wine was and that only 13% kept a check on the units they drank.
The report does support the concept of the unit, but said more work was needed to help people understand them.
It says: “There are sufficient concerns about the current drinking guidelines to suggest that a thorough review of the evidence concerning alcohol and health risks is due.”