With the new year comes Dry January and a new surgeon general's advisory on alcohol and cancer risk.
Moderate drinking was once thought to have benefits for the heart, but better research methods have thrown cold water on that.
“Drinking less is a great way to be healthier,” said Dr Timothy Naimi, who directs the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
Last Friday, U.S. Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy called for updating the existing surgeon general’s health warning label on alcohol-containing beverages to include the risk of cancer. His proposal would require approval from Congress.
Drinking raises the risk of several types of cancer, including colon, liver, breast and mouth and throat. Alcohol breaks down in the body into a substance called acetaldehyde, which can damage your cells and stop them from repairing themselves. That creates the conditions for cancer to grow.
Thousands of U.S. deaths per year could be prevented if people followed the government’s dietary guidelines, Naimi said.
Those guidelines advise men to limit themselves to two drinks or fewer per day and women to one drink or fewer per day. One drink is the equivalent of about one 12-ounce can of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a shot of liquor.
According to Murthy’s advisory, there are about 100,000 alcohol-related cancer cases and about 20,000 alcohol-related cancer deaths annually in the United States.
“As you consider whether or how much to drink, keep in mind that less is better when it comes to cancer risk,” Murthy wrote Friday on the social media platform X.
That idea that moderate drinking has health benefits came from imperfect studies comparing groups of people by how much they drink. Usually, that was measured at one point in time. And none of the studies randomly assigned people to drink or not drink, so they couldn’t prove cause and effect.
People who report drinking moderately tend to have higher levels of education, higher incomes and better access to health care, said Naimi.
“It turns out that when you adjust for those things, the benefits tend to disappear,” he said.
Another problem: Most studies didn’t include younger people. Almost half of the people who die from alcohol-related causes die before the age of 50.
“If you’re studying people who survived into middle age, didn’t quit drinking because of a problem and didn’t become a heavy drinker, that’s a very select group,” Naimi said. “It creates an appearance of a benefit for moderate drinkers that is actually a statistical illusion.”
Other studies challenge the idea that alcohol has benefits. These studies compare people with a gene variant that makes it unpleasant to drink to people without the gene variant. People with the variant tend to drink very little or not at all. One of these studies found people with the gene variant have a lower risk of heart disease — another blow to the idea that alcohol protects people from heart problems.
Guidelines vary a lot from country to country but the overall trend is toward drinking less.
The United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Holland and Australia recently reviewed new evidence and lowered their alcohol consumption recommendations. Ireland will require cancer warning labels on alcohol starting in 2026.
“The scientific consensus has shifted due to the overwhelming evidence linking alcohol to over 200 health conditions, including cancers, cardiovascular diseases and injuries,” said Carina Ferreira-Borges, regional adviser for alcohol at the World Health Organization regional office for Europe.
Naimi served on an advisory committee that wanted to lower the U.S. recommendation for men to one drink per day. That advice was considered and rejected when the federal recommendations came out in 2020.
“The simple message that’s best supported by the evidence is that, if you drink, less is better when it comes to health," Naimi said.
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22 Comments
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Aly Rustom
damn
GuruMick
I need that gene variant making it unpleasant to drink....
Jay
Sorry drinkers, but you're often the same people who'll be happy to give a lecture about the dangers of sugar in a soft drink while pounding back your eighth pint of liquid liver failure.
Alcohol DESTROYS your body, fuels government tax coffers and, if drinking it is followed to its logical conclusion, ultimately keeps Big Pharma rolling in cash treating your self-inflicted ailments.
STOP falling for the cop out that it's "just social"...as if cirrhosis and a beer gut are the somehow worth it, and START trading the booze for a some exercise and proper nutrition before you continue to fund your own demise.
JeffLee
And yet moderate drinkers live longer than those who don't drink at all.
Jay
No, in reality alcohol is linked to over 200 serious health issues, and even so-called "moderate drinking" is linked to cancer, heart disease, and liver damage.
Jay
A 2022 meta-analysis published in The Lancet confirmed that there is NO safe level of alcohol consumption when it comes to health risks.
So no, sipping that wine won't make you live longer - it just gives you a fancier way to reduce it.
Hawk
It affects your wallet and waistline, too. I've always thought that if you ever want to lose weight, the first thing you should do is reduce your alcohol intake by at least half. You'll sleep better, be less likely to miss a workout, and drinking alcohol is basically mainlining calories.
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Burgerland
Drinking a few everyday is probably not great for your health. Having an occasional glass of wine or a beer or two likely does no more harm than having a Big Mac, pizza or most other comfort foods. Most good tasting stuff is "not good for you" according to some study somewhere. Until an opposing study comes out. Just chill, enjoy the occasional vice from time to time and be happy. My two cents.
Jay
Agreed BL, but I think we need to question why that "occasional vice" has to be alcohol. If we're all about chilling and being happy, why not replace it with something that actually benefits us - like exercise or learning a skill? Why choose a substance that's a proven depressant, increases cancer risks, and ruins livers when there are countless healthier ways to unwind and find joy.
Hawk
Exercise and learning skills aren't vices. Well, depends on the skill I guess.
wallace
Stopped drinking two years ago because of health issues. I feel better and lose weight especially from not drinking beer.
Zaphod
Nobody has ever claimed that excessive drinking is healthy. My spider sense wakes up when suddenly government voices like Timothy Naimi and Vivek Murthy want everyone to talk about the dangers of alcohol. Is this not a bit of muddying the waters? So when now everywhere in the West suddenly the rates of cancer, heart attacks and all-cause-mortality go up noticable, that must be because we all started drinking too much? And not possibly because of a other causes, like, you know, the mass application of a new and insufficiently tested vaccine?
virusrex
No part of the article could be interpreted this way, alcohol have been known to increase the risks for many health problems including cancer, this is not described as something that began (or even increased) recently but it is a cause that a lot of people try to ignore to avoid making difficult lifestyle changes and the industry of alcoholic beverages is very happy support them in this denialism.
What is surprising about making this discrepancy obvious at a season where a lot of people drink more than usual? Is as expected as having articles in the Japanese media about how to eat mochi safely during December.
リッチ
Advise from people giving Americans advise and have you seen Americans. Enormous. Japan has some of the longest and healthiest people on the planet and they pickle themselves with the amount of alcohol the consume. Leave the advise for the other countries who have way more feed of advise.
Zaphod
virusrex
It absolutely can, seeing he timing of the mortality increase and his sudden interest by officials in the dangers of alcohol. Of course, I do not expect that any of your "respected institutions" show any curiosity in regard to this.
Mr Kipling
In the UK, 4% of the population drink 32% of the alcohol consumed.
Raw Beer
The only rational conclusion is that the scientific consensus of all the respected institutions of the entire world is that all those health issues are caused by alcohol, Covid, and global warming...
virusrex
Again, that is much more easily explained with the season, where lots of people overdrink. Nothing in the article indicates this is in any way an explanation to an increase over years, that is all a terribly forced interpretation you are doing.
You keep making up things about the articles in this section without reading them, quoting from it.
“The scientific consensus has shifted due to the overwhelming evidence linking alcohol to over 200 health conditions, including cancers, cardiovascular diseases and injuries,” said Carina Ferreira-Borges, regional adviser for alcohol at the World Health Organization regional office for Europe.
Making up obviously false claims because you have a systematic antiscientific bias do nothing against the actual consensus, which again is explained in the article.
Zaphod
virusrex
There is nothing in the article mentioning a seasonal phenomenon. I simply pointed out that timing of these statements from people related to governments are very convenient for some parties. (Some of your beloved "world-wide respected institutions" included). E.g. you can be sure that Peter Daszak and Fauci are a lot happier to discuss alcohol rather than all-cause mortality increases.
virusrex
There is nothing in the article mentioning a seasonal phenomenon
virusrex
The date is what makes the explanation plausible, which is a much less forced than you pretending the article says something it does not even refer to at all.
The timing is the first week of January, just after a lot of celebrations that involve alcohol.
Making up random claims completely unrelated to the article makes no sense. The timing is much more easily explained by the season than something you would like to impose without reason to the article.
And again, Carina Ferreira-Borges is the expert in the article that expresses the consensus of science about how alcohol affects the health (not lately as you misrepresent, but since always).
falseflagsteve
Wish they also had strict guidelines on the muck they put into processed foods