December 17th was a good day for wine drinkers. A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) unveiled evidence that moderate alcohol consumption can lower risks of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. It went even further to suggest that (responsible) drinking may be better for you than not drinking at all.
Three weeks later, the record scratched. On January 3rd, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy recommended cancer warning labels on alcohol.
Consumers, understandably, are feeling the whiplash. On one end of the spectrum, many of the country’s leading scientists are firmly stating alcohol consumption is tied to lower mortality. On the other: the surgeon general scorning alcohol.
So, who should we be listening to?
The National Academies's stance
NASEM’s review, which looked at recent research on the impact of moderate alcohol consumption on health, was commissioned by Congress, directed by the USDA and led by top scientists. The report is one of two that will inform the 2025 edition of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which sets the recommended limits of drinking.
“We ended up with three conclusions that reached the level of moderate certainty, meaning there was sufficient evidence to support an association,” says NASEM committee chair Dr. Ned Calonge, associate dean for public health practice at the Colorado School of Public Health.
The first: Responsible alcohol consumption can lower all-cause mortality (defined as death by any cause). The second takeaway is that moderate alcohol consumption can lower one’s risk of cardiovascular disease.
Remember the French paradox? “The report reawakened this discussion that there is a slight cardio-protective effect of alcohol consumption,” explains Dr. Robert Kaplan, an adjunct professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and a member of NASEM.
The other takeaway isn’t so great—women who consume alcohol have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer than women who have never drank.
Additional health issues, such as weight change, other forms of cancer and cognitive health, were analyzed, but Calonge and team could not find sufficient evidence to make a firm conclusion on negative or positive relations to alcohol.
The Surgeon General’s report
A few weeks after NASEM released its report, the surgeon general, Dr. Murthy, released an advisory report on his stance on alcohol. It was, quite literally, sobering.
His report, which is his summary of current literature, linked seven types of cancer to casual drinking. “What we know with a high degree of confidence is that there is a causal link between alcohol and cancer risk,” writes Dr. Murthy in the report.
Dr. Murthy called out alcohol as being the third-leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, following tobacco and obesity. There are roughly 20,000 alcohol-related cancer deaths in the country annually—more than drunk driving fatalities.
It’s important to note that both studies are arguing over the consequences of a glass or two a day, in line with the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans—one drink a day for women, two for men. Excessive drinking is detrimental, hard stop.
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