Why a new study suggests 7 weekly drinks may be the new limit for alcohol risk

• Drinking two alcoholic beverages per day may carry greater health risks than many people realize.
• The Alcohol Intake and Health Study, which was initially supposed to help shape the 2025-2030 United States Dietary Guidelines, examined how drinking alcohol affects long-term health.
• The analysis found that consuming an average of two alcoholic drinks per day, or 14 per week, was associated with an increased risk of alcohol-related health problems and death.
• They discovered that this level of consumption increased alcohol-related mortality risk to 1 in 25.

For decades, research on alcohol focused primarily on the dangers associated with heavy drinking. More recently, however, scientists have begun evaluating whether even low or moderate levels of alcohol consumption may affect long-term health.

A new study suggests that alcohol-related health risks increase steadily as consumption rises and that alcohol does not appear to provide an overall health benefit at any level of drinking.

The study is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.