For those of us who have been on the planet for more than two or three decades, we can remember the first U.S. Dietary Guidelines which included alcohol recommendations. These Guidelines helped shape media reporting, medical recommendations, and consumer awareness for decades. The 1980 Guidelines suggested that one or two drinks/day appeared to cause no harm to adults. A few decades later in 2010, the alcohol recommendations became gender specific with two drinks/day for men and one drink/day for women.
As it turns out, the new 2025 Guidelines is scheduled to be released by December of this year, and it has created a firestorm of controversy for consumers and industry members alike. Traditionally, when the DGA (Dietary Guidelines for Americans) was updated every five years, an advisory committee of nutritional scientists and public health professionals would make recommendations to the USDA and HHS.
However, more recently, the Biden administration choose to remove beer, wine, and spirits from the advisory committee ’ s purview for the 2025 DGA. Instead, the review process will be overseen by ICCPUD (Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking). Their main focus has been the problem of underage drinking, which is a noble commitment.
Part of the DGA controversy this time around is the situation where we have dueling committees that have been instructed to give direction to the USDA and HHS. The other committee, NASEM, (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine), was authorized by Congress in 2024 to conduct a study on the relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer, obesity, and heart disease.
The ICCPUD has been criticized for lack of transparency, limited stakeholder input, potential conflict of interest, and duplication. There are complaints about lack of involvement from the alcohol industry and concern about ICCPUD members affiliation with anti -alcohol advocacy groups. Moreover, early recommendations from ICCPUD have everyone in the wine industry deeply concerned. For instance, they have suggested that the new Guidelines for wine be limited to just two glasses per week instead of two glasses per day for men. ICCPUD seems to be particularly focused on cancer risk, which is a legitimate concern.
In the NASEM study on the other hand, published last December, it points to a different interpretation of the data. NASEM found that “compared with never consuming alcohol, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower all -cause mortality. ” In addition, individuals who consume at least one alcoholic drink per day have a 30% reduction in mortality from cardiovascular disease than abstainers.
Hopefully, the good folks at USDA and HHS will evaluate both reports from the committees and choose a balanced approach. Certainly, the increased risk of cancer must be weighed against the reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. Of course, life-style decisions also play in to the disease risk that are difficult to extract from epidemiological studies. The good news is there are more studies starting that will help clarify the lifestyle variables. So, stand by for news!
Research for this essay taken from: Reason Magazine -Online, May 2025, U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance -Online, January 14, 2025, Google Online AI, May 2025
