According to a Gallup survey published on Wednesday, there are less and less Americans who claim to drink alcohol, due to the increasingly widespread belief that even the Moderate alcohol consumption is harmful to health.
A record percentage of American adults, 53%, now states that drinking in moderation is bad for health, compared to 28% in 2015. The increase in doubts about alcohol benefits is largely due to young adults, the most prone age group to believe that drinking “one or two glasses per day” can be harmful to health, but older adults are also increasing It entails risks.
As the concern for health effects increases, there are less Americans who claim to drink. The survey reveals that 54% of American adults claim to drink alcoholic beverages such as liquors, wine or beer. It is the lowest percentage of the last thirty years.
The results of the survey, conducted in July, indicate that, after years in which many believed that moderate alcohol consumption was harmless, or even beneficial, concern for alcohol consumption is spreading. According to Gallup data, even those who consume alcohol drink less.
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The federal government is updating the new dietary guidelinesincluding alcohol. Before Covid-19 pandemic, government data showed that alcohol consumption in the United States was increasing. However, other government surveys have revealed a decrease in certain types of consumption, especially among adolescents and young adults.
This adds to a new wave of information about alcohol risks. Although it was previously thought that moderate consumption was beneficial to the health of the heart, in recent years health professionals have indicated Overns that alcohol consumption has negative health effects and is one of the main causes of cancer.
Skepticism about alcohol benefits grows
Younger adults have accepted faster than older Americans than drinking is harmful, but older adults are reaching the same conclusion.
According to the survey, about two thirds of young people between 18 and 34 believe that moderate alcohol consumption is harmful to health, compared to approximately 4 out of 10 in 2015. Older adults are less likely to consider that alcohol is detrimental – around half of the Americans of 55 years or more believe it – but it is also a considerable increase. In 2015, only about two out of 10 adults of 55 years or more thought that alcohol was bad for their health.
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In the past, it was thought that moderate alcohol consumption had some benefits. That idea came from imperfect studies that, for the most part, did not include young people and could not demonstrate the cause and effect relationship. Now, scientific consensus has changed and several countries have recently reduced their recommendations on alcohol consumption. Earlier this year, the United States outgoing general surgeon, Vivek Murthy, recommended a label in the bottles of beer, wine and liquors that clearly indicated the relationship between alcohol consumption and cancer.
The current food guidelines of the federal government recommend that Americans do not drink or, if they consume alcohol, that men are limited to two drinks a day or less, while women should limit themselves to one or less.
The Director of Social Research of Gallup in the United States, Lydia Saad, said that the change in health recommendations throughout the lives of older Americans can be one of the reasons why they have taken more than young adults to recognize the harmful effects of alcohol.
“Older people can be a little more resistant to abrupt changes that suppose the recommendations, “said Saad.” It may cost them a little more assimilate or accept the information. On the other hand, for young people, this is the environment in which they have grown (…) in many cases, it would be the first that young adults would have heard when they reach adulthood. “
The government is expected to publish new guidelines at the end of this year, under the direction of the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has promised great changes. Kennedy has not given clues about how alcohol recommendations could change.
Alcohol consumption rates fall at their lowest level in a decade
Something more than half of the Americans, 54 %, states that it consumes alcohol, a low figure in Gallup data that is especially pronounced between women and young adults.
Alcohol consumption among young Americans has been descending for years, which accelerates the general decrease in alcohol consumption. In marked contrast to the results of Gallup of two decades ago, when young adults were the most likely to declare that they drank, the rate of alcohol consumption among young adults is now slightly lower than that of middle -aged and older adults.
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The consumption of alcohol declared by the Americans is among the lowest since the question was formulated for the first time in 1939. During most of the last decades, at least 6 out of 10 Americans have declared consuming alcoholic beverages, and only in many occasions there has been a decrease below that percentage in the entire history of the question.
Americans who drink alcohol consume less
Although concerns about health risks are not making some adults stop drinking alcohol completely, these concerns could be influencing the frequency with which they drink.
The survey revealed that adults who think that drinking in moderation is bad for health are so likely to declare that they drink as people who do not share those concerns, but fewer people with health concerns had recently consumed alcohol.
Approximately half of those who care that moderate alcohol consumption is harmful to health said they had drunk in the previous week, compared to approximately 7 out of 10 who did not believe that drinking was bad for their health.
In general, only around a quarter of Americans who drink He said he had consumed alcohol in the last 24 hours, a historical minimum in the survey. Approximately 4 out of 10 said that more than a week had spent since the last time they had served a glass.
