The federal government is preparing to issue new dietary recommendations, but some researchers are concerned that the harmful effects of alcohol will be missed.
Leila Fadel, master:
How much can you drink? The federal government updates its dietary recommendations, which it has done every five years. The testament of the NPR's Stone reports that there are fears that some evidence of alcohol will be missed.
Will Stone, Byline: no more than two drinks per day for a man and one for a woman – this is the current leadership. A few years ago, healthcare officials in the Biden administration were enlisted by several researchers to consider evidence if the Soviets had to change.
Katherine Case: We worked for many, many months.
Stone: Katherine Kiz is an epidemiologist at Columbia University. She says that in their study many things were considered – an accident in a car, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and a stroke.
Cases: In this article, we showed that risks begin to grow even at relatively low alcohol consumption levels.
Stone: and they simulated how harm to each drink grew.
Cases: your death risk of alcohol associated with alcohol in two drinks per day exceeds 1 out of 1000. So this is quite significant.
Stone: All this was in their report on the project published at the end of last year. The alcohol industry criticized the results and called for ignoring the study. And now it seems that this happened.
Case: In August, we were told that the final report was not going to a package of materials that would be considered for dietary guidelines.
Stone: The Ministry of Health and Social Services did not explain this decision. The Trump administration may instead rely on another report – this one was ordered by Congress and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. This ended with moderate confidence that the moderate use of alcohol was associated with a lower risk of death, including cardiovascular diseases.
Dr. Ned Kalonge at the Colorado School of Public Health headed these efforts. He admits that they only returned by 2010 in their review, and they excluded their studies with the so -called opposite bias. This is when they include former drinking who stopped drinking, which makes the control group look more painful.
Ned Kalonge: And therefore, we ultimately receive a study that I feel confident at moderate levels.
Stone: Now, Kalojah says that he does not think that their conclusions are really supporting the recommendations of drinking for health, but he rejects the allegations that the bias has spoiled their work. One of the researchers in the committee received financing in the past from the alcohol industry.
Calonge: I looked at every research work that we both turned on and excluded. I was at meetings when we made a report. There was no influence of industry.
Stone: Some lawyer groups are worried about the Trump administration, referring to this report, will soften the recommendations for alcohol. Tim Stockwell, who is located at the Canadian Institute for Research on the use of Psychoactive Substances, is very critical of the report of national academies, partly because they excluded relevant studies showing harm to alcohol, including ties with cancer. He says that there are many pitfalls when you analyze alcohol data, and once he believed that the moderate drink of alcohol is for you.
Tim Stockwell: Twenty -five years ago, I published a study, mainly saying that you are crazy to doubt the protective effects.
Stone: Now, thanks to more stringent research, he doubts that there are advantages.
Stockwell: Most of the literature – serious bodies, such as the World Health Organization, recently a European heart network – all came out, saying that there is no safe level, you know, there are no protective effects. Thus, the method with which skepticism shifts has skepticism.
Stone: in fact, Canadian guidelines say that two drinks per week or less are considered low risk. But it is possible that the United States can go in the opposite direction, even with the President and Minister of Health, who do not drink.
Will Stone, NPR News.
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