While an apple a day could keep the doctor away, having more than one drink a day has recently been found to put you closer to your grave.
According to a recently published federal review from the Department of Health and Human Services, the risk of premature death skyrockets among those who have at least one alcoholic drink a day.
The report precedes a major update to federal guidelines that recommend how much alcohol Americans should be consuming.
“In the United States, males and females have a 1 in 1000 risk of dying from alcohol use if they consume more than 7 drinks per week. This risk increases to 1 in 100 if they consume more than 9 drinks per week,” the report’s authors concluded.
The review is one of two that was completed by outside experts to help inform the update to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The other report was published in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine last month.
Reports such as these play a major role in how the Food and Drug Administration, as well as other agencies, label their food and drinks.
Current recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest that men should limit their alcohol consumption to two drinks per day and women to one drink per day.
Dr. Timothy Naimi, one of the report’s authors and the director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, shared that if you have more than one drink per day, “your risk of dying from alcohol is already above one percent.”
“Some people may think that doesn’t sound like a lot, but in terms of a public health guideline, that would be really, really high,” Naimi shared with CBS News.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a coalition that represents spirits producers, has shared issues it finds with the report and joined other industry groups to reject the findings.
“Today’s report is the product of a flawed, opaque, and unprecedented process, rife with bias and conflicts of interest,” the statement said.
The statement also levied accusations against the panel, saying some of the experts who helped with the report have ties to international anti-alcohol advocacy organizations.
“Congress never authorized or appropriated money for the panel or its work, and numerous letters from Congress and industry have voiced serious concerns over the process,” the statement said.