University College London compared the amount of alcohol that survey participants said they drink and compared it with actual sales figures of alcohol and saw a stunning disparity.

Researchers saw that half of the alcohol sold was not accounted for in peoples reporting of how much they drank. According to the data, 3/4 of people in England may be drinking far more than the recommended daily limit set by the National Health Service.

The researchers suggested that people either did not want to admit how much they actually drank or weren't good at keeping track of how much they drank.

By comparing the numbers they saw that 19 percent of men and 26 percent of women were drinking far higher amounts of alcohol than the national recommended weekly limit.

Sadie Boniface, lead researcher on the study, said: "Currently we don't know who consumes almost half of all alcohol in England. This study was conducted to show what alcohol consumption would look like when all of what is sold is accounted for, if everyone under-reported equally."

She continued: "The results are putative, but they show that this gap between what is seen in the surveys and sales potentially has enormous implications for public health in England."

The paper published in the journal European Journal of Public Health can be found here.