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Moderate alcohol consumption increases health risks but offers few benefits

Moderate alcohol consumption increases health risks but offers few benefits

Consuming just one alcoholic drink per day increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, esophageal cancer, oral cancer and injuries of various kinds in both men and women, according to a federal analysis released Tuesday.

Even with this moderate level of alcohol consumption, women are at a higher risk of developing liver cancer. Consuming two drinks a day — twice the U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommendation for women, the current allowable amount for men — increases the likelihood of death from alcohol in both men and women.

The report, prepared by a scientific review panel under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services, is one of two dueling reviews used to shape influential U.S. dietary guidelines this year.

For years, some scientists have worried that the harms of moderate alcohol consumption are being underestimated, particularly the risk of cancer, which is the leading cause of death in Americans under 85, according to the American Cancer Society.

In December, an investigation by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a nongovernmental organization, reached conclusions that differ from this most recent report. It said moderate alcohol consumption was associated with fewer deaths from heart attacks and strokes and fewer deaths overall without drinking.

The National Academies analysis acknowledged that moderate alcohol consumption in women was associated with a small but significant increase in breast cancer, but said there was insufficient evidence linking alcohol to other cancers.

But this month, citing mounting scientific evidence, the U.S. health doctor called for alcohol to be labeled with cancer warnings similar to those that appear on cigarettes. And the government report released Tuesday found that the increased risk of cancer is associated with any amount of alcohol consumption and increases as alcohol consumption increases.

“What many people may have considered ‘moderate’ alcohol consumption is actually moderately risky,” said Timothy Naimi, one of the authors of the new report and director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research.

Some protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption have been recognized. Women who drink one drink daily may have a lower risk of diabetes. But the protection against strokes is lost if you drink two drinks a day, the report says.

Protection against hemorrhagic stroke and ischemic heart disease has not been observed at any level of alcohol consumption, although for years one of the main arguments for moderate alcohol consumption was that it could prevent cardiovascular disease.

The new analysis made no specific suggestions about how much people should drink; That will be left to the authors of the final dietary guidelines. However, the report points out that the health damage caused by alcohol begins at very low levels of consumption and increases in proportion to the amount consumed.

“If I were to give advice to my loved ones, the potential harms outweigh the potential benefits of low alcohol consumption,” said Katherine M. Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a member of the scientific review panel.

“Any suggestion that low or moderate consumption is generally harmless or beneficial – the data simply does not bear that out,” she added.

Since the pandemic, harmful drinking habits have become more common, other research shows.

The analysis should be understood to mean that no alcohol consumption is risk-free, said Dr. Jürgen Rehm, another author of the report and senior researcher at the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at the Canadian Center for Addiction and Mental Health.

“People take risks for their activities and do things like mountain biking and other dangerous activities,” said Dr. Rehm. “Assuming the usual threshold for higher risk, that would equate to slightly less than one drink per day.”

But even though the link between alcohol and cancer was first identified by scientists more than a century ago, many Americans are still unaware of it, he said.

Alcohol makers attacked the new report, accusing the authors of bias and conflicts of interest.

“We are committed to science over bias,” said a statement from a coalition representing 23 beer, wine and spirits producers; wheat, barley and hop farmers; and restaurant and bartending organizations.

“This report reinforces our concerns that the Dietary Guidelines will not be based on predominantly sound science to advise Americans on alcohol.”

“Many lifestyle choices carry potential risks, and consumption of alcohol is no exception,” the statement continued. “We encourage all adults who drink alcohol to follow dietary guidelines and contact their healthcare provider.”

In 2020, when the dietary guidelines were last reviewed, scientific advisers suggested lowering the recommendation for men and women to one drink daily. However, the final guidelines did not change the recommendation of two drinks for men and one for women.

According to the new report, alcohol consumption is associated with a higher risk of death from seven types of cancer, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer and liver cancer, as well as cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx and esophagus.

Men and women are both susceptible to these health effects, it said, but women are significantly more likely to develop drinking-related cancers.

The report, prepared under the auspices of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking, also highlighted the risk of death from car accidents and injuries faced by those who begin drinking as teenagers.

For girls and boys who start drinking at age 15, the likelihood of alcohol-related death increases more than tenfold as the number of drinks consumed increases from one per week to three per day, with the risk higher for young men is, the report says.

The new report evaluated evidence from previous reviews and observational studies that cannot prove alcohol caused disease. Data from randomized controlled trials that could demonstrate cause and effect were not considered as these are very limited.

Unlike the National Academies report, which compared moderate alcohol consumption with no drinking, the new analysis examined the associations between different levels of low alcohol consumption and the risk of dying overall from health problems and accidents that are causally related to alcohol consumption in the United States United States stand.

The conclusions apply to all types of alcohol, including wine, beer and spirits.

The public will have an opportunity to comment on the two reports from the National Academies and the Intergovernmental Panel beginning Wednesday and continuing through February 14.

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