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Americans might receive a formal recommendation to consume a maximum of two beers weekly under stringent alcohol directives. George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), revealed the Department of Agriculture might align U.S. alcohol guidance with Canada’s, advocating for two drinks weekly.
Koob, who told DailyMail.com that he indulges in a couple of glasses of Chardonnay weekly, monitors Canada’s alcohol approach closely.
“If there’s health benefits, I think people will start to reevaluate where we’re at [in the U.S.],” he said.
The 2020-2025 U.S. recommendations permit women one beer, one glass of wine, or one spirit shot daily. As per U.S. standards, that’s 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits. Men are permitted double that amount daily.
Koob was queried about the potential direction of guideline changes. He stated, “I mean, they’re not going to go up, I’m pretty sure. So, if [alcohol consumption guidelines] go in any direction, it would be toward Canada.”
While the U.S. guidelines are under review, the updated versions may not be published until the end of 2025.
The ongoing debate over the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption has persisted for decades. However, a growing body of research indicates that even minimal intake can have adverse health effects. A study reported in June said that consuming any amount of alcohol heightened the likelihood of experiencing 60 ailments, including 33 previously unassociated with alcohol.
While liver cirrhosis, strokes, and cancer are established consequences of excessive drinking, the recent Oxford University-led study, which assessed data from half a million Chinese men, showed connections to additional conditions such as gout and cataracts. Koob told DailyMail.com that alcohol offers no physical health advantages.
“Most of the benefits people attribute to alcohol, we feel they really have more to do with what someone’s eating rather than what they’re drinking,” he said. “So it really has to do with the Mediterranean diet socioeconomic status that makes you able to afford that kind of diet and make your own fresh food. With this in mind, most benefits kind of disappear on the health side.”
He did acknowledge, however, that alcohol has a social function, referring to it as a “social lubricant.”
Canadian health authorities conceded that their recently introduced regulations might be considered “a bit shocking” when they were unveiled earlier this year. The assessment process for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans from 2025 to 2030 is already in progress, although the final version might be released at the conclusion of 2025.
Since the 1990s, the United States has advocated a permissible threshold of two daily drinks for adult men and one for women. Earlier, research hinted at potential benefits associated with alcohol consumption, including resveratrol in red wine, linked to reduced cancer risk and enhanced cardiovascular health. However, in recent years, the tide of research has shifted, cautioning that even modest alcohol intake poses health hazards.
A 2020 report by a federal panel of experts cautioned that alcohol consumption heightened the likelihood of cancer, proposing a reduction to merely one beverage per day. A subsequent 2021 report by the American Cancer Society asserted that alcohol contributed to potentially 1 in 20 cancer cases in the U.S., equating to approximately 25,000 patients annually.
This report identified increased risks for less common cancers like throat cancer and more prevalent ones such as breast cancer, the most frequent type among women. More recent research encompassing 370,000 individuals showed a 1.4-fold elevation in heart disease risk associated with higher alcohol intake.
Prominent bodies, including the World Health Organization, have underscored these findings to caution against even minimal alcohol consumption due to the potential peril it poses to one’s health.
Relying on an expanding array of research and their assessment of 6,000 studies, Canadian health authorities reversed their alcohol directives earlier this year, favoring a recommendation of a maximum of two drinks weekly. Their earlier guidance had permitted women up to 10 drinks weekly and men up to 15, mirroring the limits established in the United States.
Nevertheless, this alteration encountered swift censure from certain circles, as critics contended that authorities neglected the potential advantages of drinking, encompassing its role in social interactions and mitigating loneliness.
Dan Malleck, a health sciences expert at Brock University in Canada, said, “Alcohol infuses many lives in many positive ways. We celebrate accomplishments, mark occasions, bring wine to parties, meet with friends, commiserate, relax, blow off steam … these are important activities and part of the texture and tone of many lives.”
Experts have previously argued that studies into the risks of alcohol are flawed because they fail to examine these social benefits.
Some experts have contended that studies investigating alcohol risks are flawed due to their omission of these social advantages.
Jim Thomas ✉
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