Dietary Guidelines
The U.S. moderate drinking guidelines provide advice from the federal government on how many alcohol beverage drinks a person can consume each day and still be reasonably assured that negative health consequences are minimal. The current guideline is two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women. Multiple federal agencies share this guidance, set in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans every five years.
The process to publish the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) officially began on April 15, 2022, with a Federal Register notice that surprised the wine, spirits, and beer industries. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announcement included a notification that alcohol research questions will not be in the remit of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC).
Guidance on moderate alcohol consumption will stay in the DGAs when published in 2025. Still, in the Federal Register announcement, HHS proclaimed, “Alcoholic beverages remain a high priority topic, but because it requires significant, specific expertise and has unique considerations, it will be examined in a separate effort led by HHS Agencies that support work on this topic.”
HHS leadership has yet to identify precisely how it plans to review the scientific research on consuming alcohol beverages. Still, at the first DGAC meeting in February of 2023, the advisory committee was told that there is a plan between HHS and USDA to review the research and that “it’s underway.”
The Beer Institute’s advocacy will encourage the agency to implement a rigorous, objective, and transparent review of scientific evidence before considering changing the existing moderate drinking guidelines. Advice on alcohol consumption must be trusted, believable and reasonable. A completely closed-door review by federal career scientists and experts would be insufficient. The beer industry wants a thorough and transparent review of the scientific evidence base for alcohol consumption.
