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? Properly, that’s as much as you.
As a part of the new federal dietary pointers launched this week, the Trump administration eradicated the earlier particular really helpful limits on alcohol consumption — two drinks or much less per day for males and one drink for ladies. Now, the brand new pointers say “devour much less alcohol for higher well being. (It maintained the prior steerage discouraging a number of sure teams — pregnant girls and individuals who have a historical past of alcohol abuse — from consuming in any respect.) It’s a serious change that defies a rising public well being consensus that individuals ought to drink as little alcohol as doable, as a result of no quantity of consuming is definitely protected.
To justify the change, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees the Medicare and Medicaid applications, argued that there was no scientific proof to justify particular limits on consuming alcohol. “Within the best-case state of affairs, I don’t assume you need to drink alcohol, however it does enable folks an excuse to bond and socialize,” Oz mentioned in the course of the announcement of the brand new pointers. “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 information to assist that amount of alcohol consumption,” he added.
There is such information — proof commissioned by the federal authorities that the Trump administration itself tried to bury forward of the dietary pointers’ 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 in opposition to public well being critics.
Trump and Kennedy shelved a research on alcohol’s dangerous well being results
For the entire sordid saga, you’ll be able to take a look at our function story from September. However here’s a temporary 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 subsequent dietary pointers due in 2025, a response to the growing 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 folks die yearly from alcohol-related causes.
Nearly as quickly as that undertaking started, the alcohol trade began pushing again and soliciting Congress in its efforts.
In response to this strain, Congress authorized 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 Providers underneath President Joe Biden on behalf of their constituents framed the unique report as a witch hunt in opposition to 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 just lately:
They broke out their findings by totally different consuming ranges — from one drink per day to 3 — 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 destructive well being results of consuming alcohol begin at low ranges of consumption and start to extend sharply the extra an individual drinks.
A person consuming one drink per day has roughly a one in 1,000 probability of dying from any alcohol-related trigger, whether or not an alcohol-associated most cancers or liver illness or a drunk driving accident. Improve that to 2 drinks per day, and the percentages improve to at least one in 25.
That’s exactly the sort of proof that may recommend a particular restrict on alcohol consumption can be applicable — the sort 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 printed by the Trump administration. They determined to squash its public launch, as I reported final fall, at the same time as they claimed it could be considered for the forthcoming dietary pointers.
There was such a furor over that call that even the authors of the Nationwide Academies report later printed a commentary within the journal JAMA to clarify that their research shouldn’t be over-interpreted to justify extra consuming or eliminating limits on consuming alcohol.
Nonetheless, that’s precisely what occurred within the new dietary pointers — a coverage victory cheered by beer, wine, and liquor producers. The boundaries 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 decreasing consumption to lower than 2 drinks per day dramatically reduces the possibility of dying on account of alcohol. Simply because the trade, through Congress, mentioned ‘don’t learn it’ doesn’t imply the report by no means existed.”
Replace, January 9, 5 pm ET: This story was initially printed on January 9 and up to date to incorporate extra context from Oz’s feedback on the dietary pointers announcement this week.
