Health Risks of Alcohol Accelerate After One Drink a Day, Study Finds

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Source: New York Times

Health Risks of Alcohol Accelerate After One Drink a Day, Study Finds

The alcohol industry has criticized the research, which found that even light drinking increases the risk of premature death.


Cedric Angeles for The New York Times

By Roni Caryn Rabin
https://www.nytimes.com/by/roni-caryn-rabin
June 9, 2026
Updated 9:28 a.m. ET

A government alcohol study published on Tuesday concluded that the health risks of alcohol start at a single drink a day. The report was caught up in controversy after drawing the ire of the alcohol industry.

At one drink a day, the researchers found, there was an increased risk of premature death from an illness or injury directly attributable to alcohol, though it was small — one in 1,000 people. But the risk of premature death jumped to one in 25 for those who had two drinks a day, a level long considered safe for men, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. ... The Alcohol Intake and Health Study was one of two reports commissioned during the Biden administration to inform an update to the U.S. dietary guidelines.

The second report, from a panel appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, or NASEM, came to very different conclusions. It suggested that moderate drinking (up to two drinks a day for men and one for women) was healthier than not drinking at all, although it noted that moderate drinking was also linked to a higher breast cancer risk. Some of the panelists behind that report had financial ties to the alcohol industry.

The second report’s finding was more palatable to the alcohol industry, which had called the Alcohol Intake and Health Study ideologically driven and scientifically flawed, and said it had communicated its concerns repeatedly to government officials over a period of several years.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/09/well/alcohol-health-risks-study.html