How a lot alcohol do you have to drink? The US authorities now vaguely, in impact, says simply don’t drink too a lot. And what qualifies as an excessive amount of? Effectively, that’s as much as you.
As a part of the new federal dietary tips launched this week, the Trump administration eradicated the earlier particular really useful limits on alcohol consumption — two drinks or much less per day for males and one drink for ladies. Now, the brand new tips say “devour much less alcohol for higher well being. (It maintained the prior steering discouraging a number of sure teams — pregnant girls and individuals who have a historical past of alcohol abuse — from ingesting in any respect.) It’s a serious change that defies a rising public well being consensus that folks ought to drink as little alcohol as doable, as a result of no quantity of ingesting is definitely protected.
To justify the change, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees the Medicare and Medicaid packages, argued that there was no scientific proof to justify particular limits on ingesting alcohol. “Within the best-case state of affairs, I don’t suppose it’s best to drink alcohol, however it does permit individuals an excuse to bond and socialize,” Oz stated through the announcement of the brand new tips. “However the implication is, don’t have it for breakfast.”
“The overall transfer away from two glasses for males, one glass for ladies — there was by no means actually good knowledge to assist that amount of alcohol consumption,” he added.
There is such knowledge — proof commissioned by the federal authorities that the Trump administration itself tried to bury forward of the dietary tips’ launch, as Vox reported a number of months in the past. However as a substitute, Oz and Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have handed the alcohol trade a long-sought win in its battle towards public well being critics.
Trump and Kennedy shelved a research on alcohol’s dangerous well being results
For the entire sordid saga, you possibly can take a look at our function story from September. However here’s a transient recap: In early 2022, the Biden administration launched the Alcohol Consumption & Well being Research, a brand new report on alcohol and its well being results to tell the following dietary tips due in 2025, a response to the rising proof that no quantity of alcohol is protected. The World Well being Group had made such a declaration in 2023; within the US, greater than 170,000 individuals die yearly from alcohol-related causes.
Nearly as quickly as that mission started, the alcohol trade began pushing again and soliciting Congress in its efforts.
In response to this stress, Congress authorised in fall 2023 an alternate research to be overseen by the Nationwide Academies of Science and Medication. Congressional hearings held by the lawmakers, who represented states the place alcohol is a serious trade, and letters they despatched to the Division of Well being and Human Companies underneath President Joe Biden on behalf of their constituents framed the unique report as a witch hunt towards alcohol.
Nonetheless, each research have been undertaken, and their respective authors set to work. In December 2024, the Nationwide Academies report got here out and acknowledged that, with some crucial limitations, the well being results of alcohol have been marginal. However a draft model of the Alcohol Consumption & Well being Research was posted in January 2025, shortly earlier than the tip of the Biden administration, and it got here to very totally different conclusions, as I wrote not too long ago:
They broke out their findings by totally different ingesting ranges — from one drink per day to a few — and targeted on well being outcomes which have been confirmed to be related to alcohol use.
Their big-picture conclusion: Among the many US inhabitants, the damaging well being results of ingesting alcohol begin at low ranges of consumption and start to extend sharply the extra an individual drinks.
A person ingesting one drink per day has roughly a one in 1,000 likelihood of dying from any alcohol-related trigger, whether or not an alcohol-associated most cancers or liver illness or a drunk driving accident. Enhance that to 2 drinks per day, and the percentages enhance to at least one in 25.
That’s exactly the form of proof that may counsel a selected restrict on alcohol consumption can be applicable — the form of proof that Oz claimed doesn’t exist.
The ultimate model of the Alcohol Consumption & Well being Research was shelved — and nonetheless has not been revealed by the Trump administration. They determined to squash its public launch, as I reported final fall, at the same time as they claimed it might be considered for the forthcoming dietary tips.
There was such a furor over that call that even the authors of the Nationwide Academies report later revealed a commentary within the journal JAMA to clarify that their research shouldn’t be over-interpreted to justify extra ingesting or eliminating limits on ingesting alcohol.
However, that’s precisely what occurred within the new dietary tips — a coverage victory cheered by beer, wine, and liquor producers. The bounds are…no matter you need them to be.
“Dr. Oz will need to have thrown again a number of cocktails for breakfast earlier than making that remark,” Mike Marshall, president and CEO of the US Alcohol Coverage Alliance, instructed me. “The federal authorities’s personal report, the Alcohol Consumption & Well being research, made it clear that there’s overwhelming proof that lowering consumption to lower than 2 drinks per day dramatically reduces the prospect of dying because of alcohol. Simply because the trade, through Congress, stated ‘don’t learn it’ doesn’t imply the report by no means existed.”
Replace, January 9, 5 pm ET: This story was initially revealed on January 9 and up to date to incorporate extra context from Oz’s feedback on the dietary tips announcement this week.
