The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy (Dr. Murthy is the 19th and 21st Surgeon General, serving under Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden) recently released an advisory declaring that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. The advisory called out in particular the risks associated with several types of cancer, especially breast cancer in women and cancers of the digestive tract in both men and women. The advisory states, "The more alcohol consumed, the greater the risk of cancer. For certain cancers, like breast, mouth, and throat cancers, evidence shows that this risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day." The advisory further provides a number of recommendations to minimize the health risks associated with alcohol consumption, most notably the addition of a health warning label on all alcohol-containing beverages to now include cancer risk (similar to the warnings placed on all tobacco products a number of years ago).
Given the push to limit alcohol consumption, I thought it would be a good time to talk about "Dry January", a challenge to avoid all alcohol consumption for the entire month of January. While the formal notion of "Dry January" first began with a campaign launched in 2014 by a charity in the United Kingdom known as Alcohol Change UK (notably "Dry January" is a registered trademark with Alcohol Change UK), the history of abstaining from alcohol during the first month of the year goes back much longer. The government of Finland created "Raitis tammikuu" (literally meaning "Sober January") as part of a war effort to save money in 1942! However, the campaign launched in the UK certainly did the most to popularize the challenge. At least 175,000 people signed up to participate in "Dry January" on the Alcohol Change UK website in 2023, and 15% of adults in the U.S. (that's 260 million people) also pledged to abstain from alcohol during the month of January.
Last year, Alcohol Change UK reported that 88% of individuals who participated in the challenge saved money, 71% had better sleep and more energy, and 58% lost weight. While most people believe that they will revert back to their old drinking habits at the completion of the challenge, there is some evidence to suggest that the making this small lifestyle change, even if only for a month, will have significant health benefits and an impact on healthy habits for several months afterwards.
There are a number of websites with recommendations on how to be successful with the "Dry January" challenge. For example, Harvard Medical School provides a list of recommendations ("Thinking of trying Dry January? Steps for success") on its health blog. In addition, Alcohol Change UK created an app to assist with the challenge (see the link here). The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says, "Remember, if you feel better when you are not drinking, or when you decrease your drinking, then your body is telling you something. Listen to your body." All of these websites also provide a list of signs and symptoms for alcohol withdrawal syndrome, which can be serious - the Harvard Medical School blog post says, "If you suffer alcohol withdrawal symptoms at any time, you should seek immediate medical help."
The Surgeon General's report states loudly and clearly that all types of alcohol, including wine, can increase the risk of cancer. One of the questions we had was about the purported benefits of drinking a glass of red wine - the so-called French Paradox, based on an observation that the people of France lower rates of coronary heart disease (CHD), including deaths, despite a high intake of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, we heard that at least some experts suggested that consumption (in small amounts) of red wine could reduce the risk of CHD. Red wine contains an anti-oxidant known as resveratrol, a compound believed to have anti-hypertensive effects and potential protective properties because of the ways it relaxes blood vessels. Unfortunately, if that was the explanation, an individual would have to consume about 500 to 2,700 liters of red wine, or 800 kilograms of red grapes, or 2,900 kilograms of dark chocolate — massive amounts that would not be considered healthy, or even possible - in order to get the 1 gram per day of resveratrol that some research suggests would result in such health benefits!
The French Paradox is still widely debated. However, if we are going to pay attention to epidemiological studies linking wine consumption with lower risks of CHD, we also have to pay attention to the more rigorous studies linking alcohol consumption with an increased risk of cancer. The bottom line is that alcoholic beverages, even wine, should be limited to at most one drink per day (and the Surgeon General's report suggests that we should even limit our consumption further than that amount). Novelist and wine aficionada Boris Fishman discusses some of the benefits to wine consumption (albeit limited) in New York Times editorial released in response to the Surgeon General's advisory. My wife and I enjoy drinking the typical "glass of wine with dinner", but we decided to jump on the bandwagon and take the "Dry January" challenge this year. Balancing all of the potential benefits and potential risks, I suspect my wife and I will go back to drinking our wine again after the month of January. But for now, we will push on and abstain for the rest of the month.
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