Drinking health guidelines in the United States could soon resemble Canada’s two drinks per week allowance, Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Dr. George Koob said.
In January, Canadian health officials changed health guidelines for drinking to only two drinks a week. Recommendations for the United States are not up for review until 2025, WEAR News reported. Koob called Canada’s new stricter guidelines a “great experiment.”
“I mean, [alcohol consumption guidelines] are not going to go up, I’m pretty sure. So if [guidelines] go in any direction, it would be toward Canada,” Koob said.
President Joe Biden’s beer czar also said many of the health benefits attributed to drinking alcohol, particularly red wine, have more to do with one’s overall diet.
“So it really has to do with the Mediterranean diet, socio-economic status, that makes you able to afford that kind of diet and make your own fresh food and so forth,” Koob told the Daily Mail. “With this in mind, most of the benefits kind of disappear on the health side.”
Currently, in Canada, men are recommended only two drinks a day, or 14 a week, and women are recommended only one a day, or seven a week.
Koob’s proposal to follow in Canada’s footsteps has caught major criticism from Distilled Spirits Council Vice President Amanda Berger, who claims he is undermining “the scientific rigor and objectivity of the entire Dietary Guidelines process.”
“It is extremely alarming and inappropriate for a federal official to predetermine the outcome of the Dietary Guidelines and suggest changing decades of precedent without the benefit of the scientific review to support such a sweeping move,” Berger said in a statement.
A study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that Americans, on average, consume 2.51 gallons of ethanol (what is found in alcoholic beverages), rivaling drinking levels during the Civil War.
