Is drinking alcohol bad for your health? New dietary guidelines will weigh risks and benefits
By , CNN
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Most adults in the United States drink alcohol, but there is steadily growing public concern about the health effects of moderate drinking.
The latest science supports those concerns, but two recent government reports suggest potential benefits exist alongside potential risks – and some experts say that formal dietary recommendations, due to be reviewed this year, could take a more nuanced approach.
It is well-established that excessive alcohol use, including binge drinking and heavy drinking, has significant negative health effects. But recent studies have found that even low levels of drinking may be harmful, and the World Health Organization has said that “no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.”
The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans, from the US Department of Health and Human Services and US Department of Agriculture, say that men should limit their daily alcohol intake to two drinks or less, and one drink or less for women.
A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS released Friday finds that half of US adults say that moderate drinking is bad for health, more than double the share who said the same two decades ago. Women and adults younger than 45 are more likely than men and older adults to say that moderate drinking is bad for health, as were Democrats and independents.
Just 8% of US adults say that drinking in moderation is good for your health, according to the new CNN poll, about one-third of the share that said the same in 2005. Another 43% of adults say that moderate drinking makes no difference to health.
There is a known link between alcohol and cancer, and any amount of drinking raises that risk. For Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, this “direct link” was sufficient to issue an advisory and call for an updated health warning label on alcoholic beverages to highlight it.
“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States – greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the US – yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk,” Murthy said in a statement earlier this month.
