Posts Tagged ‘alcohol’

Drinking alcohol causes cancer – at least seven different types of it, says the Surgeon General. It can also cause a slew of other chronic diseases – liver disease, heart disease, dementia, diabetes, and obesity to name a few. So with this administration making a lot of noise about making America healthy and reducing the […]

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a new, exhaustive report yesterday on alcohol and health. Anticipating pressure for stronger advice against drinking alcohol in the 2025 edition of Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Congress asked for this report – perhaps to provide a rationale for toning down any such strong advice. More or […]

Clickbait is a new spin on an old thing. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll used to be the formula for drawing eyes to advertising. Now the hottest clickbait is sex, alcohol, and GLP-1 drugs. People magazine tells us this month that GLP-1 agonists “may impact the desire to drink alcohol or have sex.” Oh […]

We would classify this as a report of a side effect. But it’s not really an adverse event. It seems that for some people, the use of semaglutide has prompted less alcohol use. In the New York Times, Dani Blum describes the experience of one patient: “In August 2022, Eva Monsen’s endocrinologist prescribed Ozempic [semaglutide] […]

Objectivity about the risks of drinking alcohol is not easy to find. Just like sweet beverages, alcohol has been part of human culture and a source of pleasure for thousands of years. An awareness of its health risks also has a very long history. Because humans can rationalize just about anything, we embrace assurances from […]

A glass of wine is a fine complement to a good meal, but could it also be a tool for preventing type 2 diabetes? A sampling of recent headlines prompted by the American Heart Association might certainly lead you to think so. Like this one from Martha Stewart Living: Science Says Drinking a Glass of […]

Alcohol can have some seriously bad effects on health and life. So a century ago, zealous advocates worked to ban alcoholic beverages altogether and they briefly succeeded in a number of countries, including the U.S. But the impulses for prohibition faded away because of popular resistance and unintended consequences. Today, the harm that stems from […]

This happens only once every five years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, along with Health and Human Services, issued new dietary guidelines yesterday. This is big news, but the reporting on it is pretty slim. In the 2020 guidelines for eating, we have some gains and some gaps in translating science into policy. In keeping […]

New research from Rand and the Indiana University School of Public Health at Bloomington offers a vivid picture of two major health risks colliding. Alcohol use is growing more frequent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it’s growing heavier. This is not what we need, because alcohol use is already the number one global health risk […]

The pandemic has left some businesses hurting while giving others a boost. For example, restaurants are hurting, but the business of selling alcohol is having a boom time. People are drinking up during this pandemic. Sooner or later, though, we’ll have to pay the tab. And the real cost may be to our health, warns […]