US on Friday Surgeon General Vivek Murthy suggested a major change How the US labels alcoholic beverages: Alcohol must come with cigarette-style warnings, similar to labeling given that alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer. ireland Starting later this year. It has shifted focus to alcohol ahead of a scheduled update of the U.S. dietary guidelines for Americans later this year, but it's unclear whether new labels should be expected — adding them would require action from Congress. Will happen.
However, drinkers are already taking action. If the bars seem a little emptier this month, it may be because more people are trading happy hour for Dry January. This tradition, in which people abstain from alcohol for an entire month, is growing in popularity.
According to data from polling organization CivicScience, one in four U.S. adults completed Dry January in 2024, up 16 percent from a year earlier. and a guess 15.5 million In Britain, where the movement started 12 years ago, people said they planned to take part this year, according to Alcohol Change UK, the charity behind the movement. In 2013 this number was just 4,000. Temporary abstinence is contagious, and studies Show that putting the bottle away for a month has immediate health benefits. But whether the health benefits will last or reach those most in need remains unclear.
“The concept that it's a one-month detox or spring clean that sets you up for the rest of the year, I don't think there's any evidence for that,” says Gautam Mehta, associate professor in hepatology at University College London. Who has studied the effects of month-long abstinence. “But it seems like people have got more of an understanding of their relationship with alcohol and what they want to do with their relationship with alcohol for the rest of the year.”
one 2018 Study Mehta worked on a group of moderate drinkers who went sober for a month and compared them with a control group who maintained their old habits. The most notable benefits for nondrinkers include better sleep and weight loss. They also experienced more subtle effects; Their blood pressure decreased and their biomarkers for insulin resistance improved, which is an indicator of lower risk of developing diabetes.
And some people say a abstinent month helps them cut down overall. In 2019, researchers at the University of Sussex conducted an analysis survey Filled by several thousand people. They found that 59 percent of respondents reported that they drank less alcohol six months after Dry January, and 32 percent said that their physical health was better. However, only about 38 percent of people who started the survey followed it after six months.
Still, taking only a short break does not give the body time to fully recover from the effects of drinking alcohol. This is what two British doctors, who are also identical twins, demonstrated when they operated on their twins Use In 2015 (Mehta provided expertise in the experiment, which aired as an episode of the BBC's horizon.) They each spent a month sober, and tests showed that their livers were equally healthy. Then, he spent a month drinking 21 units of alcohol weekly, which was the recommended limit for men in the UK at the time (this has since been revised to 14 units). There were differences in how they accomplished the task: one drank three units (about a large glass of wine) every day for a month, and the other drank only once a week, but drank all 21 units. At the end of the month, swelling in the liver of both had increased. For the binge twin, it was clear that even taking six days off between binges was not enough time for the organ to fully heal.