How many alcoholic drinks do you have in an entire week? Five, seven, 10? More? If you have one drink a day, your health could be impacted ― but the powers that be aren’t doing much to make that fact known.
Earlier this month, Vox reported that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Department of Health and Human Services decided not to publish a large federal study on the negative impact alcohol has on our health. A draft of the report, known as the Alcohol Intake and Health Study, was published for public comment in January and is available online.
“This report and our findings were, as we were told, going to inform the new drinking guidelines,” said Priscilla Martinez, the deputy scientific director at the Alcohol Research Group and an author of the report.
Now, instead, a competing report that’s in-line with the country’s current drinking guidelines (one drink or fewer a day for women and two or fewer for men) will inform the guideline update, according to the New York Times. Some of the panelists behind this competing report have financial interests aligned with the alcohol industry, the New York Times reported.
“I think you generally want to have any recommendations about diet or lifestyle behaviors [to be] informed by the most sound science,” Martinez said. “And so that’s what I think is unfortunate about the [the Alcohol Intake and Health Study] not being included.”
The Department of Health and Human Services did not reply to HuffPost’s request for comment.
The Alcohol Intake and Health Study brought important health consequences of drinking alcohol to the spotlight. These health issues happen more with heavy drinking, of course, but researchers found they can start at a pretty low amount of alcohol use. Here’s what to know:
As little as one drink per day is linked to cancer and other chronic diseases, researchers found.
“This report that isn’t going to be released, links [alcohol] with 200-plus health conditions,” said Brooke Scheller, a clinical nutritionist and author of “How to Eat to Change How You Drink.” Scheller was not affiliated with the research.
These conditions ranged from mental health disorders to heart disease to cancer to digestive diseases and more.
Researchers found that the risk of negative health effects started at one drink a day, which increased the risk of developing certain cancers and risk of liver cirrhosis. This is true for both men and women.
The cancers that increased with alcohol use include breast cancer, liver cancer, colorectal cancer, pharyngeal cancer, oral cavity cancer, laryngeal cancer and esophageal cancer.
People who had one drink a day did have a lower risk of stroke, but that benefit was canceled out if folks even occasionally had more than one drink a day. And, the more you drink, the more at risk you are for health problems.
Those who have more than seven drinks per week had a 1-in-1,000 risk of dying from an alcohol-related cause, and for people who had upward of nine drinks a week, that number increased to 1 in 100, researchers found.
“There’s almost a 40 fold increase in risk of a man dying from an alcohol-related disease when he goes from one drink to two drinks a day,” Martinez said. This is something Martinez and the other study authors thought was “quite remarkable.”
For women, the risk of developing cancer as a result of drinking is higher than a man’s risk “because the link between alcohol and breast cancer is so strong,” Martinez said.
Svittlana Kuchina via Getty Images
Alcohol use is linked to both immediate health conditions and health issues down the line.
“I think one way to think about alcohol’s health impacts is to think about it in terms of its right-now effects, and then its long-term effects,” said Martinez.
The right-now effects are the things you probably know about — hangovers, fatigue at work, drunken injuries and dangers related to driving under the influence, Martinez said.
The long-term effects are the chronic diseases associated with alcohol use. This includes all of the diseases and conditions mentioned above, Martinez noted.
Scheller added that alcohol also influences our brains, moods, digestion and energy levels.
“And so it’s almost more important to me to point out — yes, cancer, but also all of these other pieces are really important to understand,” Scheller said.
Not publishing this report is a ‘major, major disservice.’
While some people have long known about the health consequences of drinking alcohol (alcohol was categorized as a Group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization in 1988), many are unaware of its impact beyond a hangover.
There’s a lack of education about alcohol’s impact on health, which means many people who drink are unaware that alcohol is a toxin, according to Scheller.
“The whole thing is enraging … they want to cover a lot of this up, they don’t want to put a lot of this information out. And … we could speculate as to why that is, but it really is doing our public a major, major disservice. Especially as we see other countries like Canada change their guidance, but then the U.S. kind of pushes it under the rug. It just goes to show how strong those ties are to the industry,” Scheller said.
For reference, in 2022, the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Addiction released new, lower alcohol consumption guidelines, she added.
Canada’s previous recommendation was the same as the current U.S. recommendation — one drink or fewer for women a day and two drinks or fewer for men a day.
Now, the new Canadian guidance states that drinking one to two drinks each week puts you at low risk of health effects, three to six drinks per week puts you at moderate risk and seven or more drinks each week puts you at high risk of health effects from alcohol, Scheller explained. This is a huge difference from the up to seven drinks per week for women and up to 14 drinks per week for men that is in the U.S. guidelines.
Once again, the health consequences detailed above start at one drink a day, according to Martinez.
“That’s much less pleasant to hear, because reasonably, people don’t like hearing bad news about something that makes them feel good, but this is what the science is showing,” Martinez said.
If you want to drink less, there are many ways to go about it.
If this inspires you to curb your drinking, there’s a variety of directions to take.
First, if you suspect you have alcohol use disorder, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional who is trained in substance use. Psychology Today has a database of mental health professionals across the country.
If you are looking to cut back or cut out drinking, the experts who spoke to HuffPost gave a few tips.
If you normally have three drinks on a Saturday, have two, Martinez said. Or, if you drink every night of the week, reduce the number of nights you do drink, Martinez suggested.
“They might want to have more days where they just don’t drink at all … and having no alcohol days is a good thing,” Martinez said.
Your drink’s percentage or Alcohol By Volume (ABV) number is also an important factor. “It’s not just how much you drink, it’s … how much alcohol is in it,” said Martinez.
Many craft breweries make high-percentage IPAs, which are often 8% or even 9% alcohol, much more than what’s considered to be a standard drink, which is a 12-ounce 5% beer.
If you drink one high ABV beer, you’re having the equivalent of one and a half standard drinks. If you have two high ABV beers, it’s the same as having three standard drinks, Martinez said. “Having lower ABV beverages can also be a way to cut down. You just want to reduce the amount of pure alcohol that you’re getting.”
There’s also a wide variety of non-alcoholic beers, wines and mocktails available at many stores, restaurants and bars. Instead of drinking booze, you can opt for a non-alcoholic option.
Scheller also recommended listening to podcasts like Sober Powered and Hello Someday and reading books like “The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober” for support and motivation.
In the end, people should be able to make an informed decision about their alcohol use — but, if people aren’t given the actual data, that isn’t possible.
Kennedy is on a mission to “make America healthy again,” an initiative put forth by the Trump administration; Kennedy has also promised “radical transparency” regarding health and science in this country.
“If we’re trying to make America healthy and we want to be transparent and help people really live healthier lives but we’re going to cover up something that the majority of Americans are doing — drinking alcohol — and they’re not being informed about the risks of that … it’s really disappointing to see that, but not shocking,” Scheller said.
People should have access to the most rigorous information available when it comes to alcohol use and their health so they can make decisions about drinking, Martinez said.
There’s a big focus on things that don’t actually have a big impact on our health, such as food dyes, Scheller added.
“Do I think food dyes are good? No, I don’t. I think they need to be removed. I’m not arguing that at all, but I’m saying that there are bigger fish to fry, too, like alcohol,” Scheller added.
“I think we’re really doing the public a disservice by potentially not informing them in these new dietary guidelines, by continuing to play into this really, really addictive, really toxic substance,” Scheller said.
Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
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