Ever wondered why pubs turn music up so loud that you have to shout to the person next to you to be heard? The answer may be that canny landlords are using loud music to make you drink up faster. A study by French scientists suggests loud music in a bar is good for its bottom line. They found that when the volume goes up, punters drink faster and consume more.

"We have shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking," said Professor Nicolas Guéguen, a behavioural scientist at the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France. "We need to encourage bar owners to play music at more of a moderate level and make consumers aware that loud music can influence their alcohol consumption."

His team watched 40 men ordering beer at a local bar. None were aware they were being watched. For each punter, the team set the bar's music volume to either 72 decibels (around the volume of a vacuum cleaner at 10 feet away) or 88 dB (around the volume of a passing truck at 10 feet).

They found that with the music up high, the men drank on average 3.4 beers and took 11.5 minutes to knock each back. At the more mellow volume level, the men ordered 2.6 drinks on average and supped for a more leisurely 14.5 minutes. The results are reported in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Mark Hastings, director of communications at the British Beer and Pub Association, said: "At last we have the solution to Britain's record rate of pub closures ... Thank goodness for French academics coming to our rescue, as long as they don't insist it has to be wall-to-wall Edith Piaf and Johnny Halliday."