On Wednesday, the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD), a committee under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS), published a draft report of its study on alcohol intake and health. This study is the latest in a string of reports on alcohol’s impact on morbidity and mortality, following the release of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) report and the advisory warning issued from the U.S. surgeon general on Jan. 3 regarding the risks of alcohol consumption as it relates to cancer.
The ICCPUD’s new Alcohol Intake and Health Study evaluated systematic reviews and meta-analyses of “observational” cohort studies, and did not include data from experimental studies or randomized controlled trials. The findings suggest that the risk of dying from alcohol use begins at low levels of average use, and that the risk of alcohol-related mortality increases progressively with higher levels of consumption.
