The US surgeon general’s warning of an increased risk of cancer from drinking alcohol might end up resonating most with younger Americans — who over the past years were already turning to mocktails and juices instead of alcoholic drinks.
It is unclear whether US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s suggestion to update warning labels on the risks of alcohol would be acted upon by US Congress, but, over the past decade, the youngest adults have been drinking less.
Brooklyn resident Amy Hudson, 35, said she cut back on drinking alcohol from multiple times a week to less than three times a month after she started having chronic migraines in 2021.
Photo: AP
“I found mocktails to be a good way to get antioxidants while incorporating anti-inflammatory foods into my diet,” Hudson said.
Ingredients like pineapple, cherry juice and ginger have helped manage her migraines, she said.
In 2023, 49.6 percent of Americans aged 18 to 25 had used alcohol in the previous month, according to US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration national survey figures, down from 59.6 percent from 2013.
Sean Goldsmith, chief executive officer of non-alcoholic beverage e-commerce platform The Zero Proof, said the surgeon general’s announcement comes as “more and more people are realizing that drinking alcohol is not good for you.”
He is in one of his busiest seasons of the year — “Dry January,” a month in which some people choose to abstain from alcohol following the holiday season.
About 90 percent of The Zero Proof’s shoppers are alcohol drinkers looking for healthier beverages, Goldsmith said.
More than 60 percent of his customers are women, and most are Millennials aged 28 to 43, he said.
Public health bodies like the WHO have increasingly turned their attention toward alcohol after making progress on stronger tobacco controls.
The American Medical Association in a Friday statement said that it has warned for years of the increased cancer risk from any alcohol consumption.
“Despite decades of compelling evidence of this connection, too many in the public remain unaware of alcohol’s risk,” it said.
Sara Martin, a 42-year-old salesperson in Los Angeles, is not participating in Dry January, but said mocktails are great options at work parties.
“I’m in an industry that drinks more heavily than I can keep up with,” she said.
She is glad younger people in her industry “are pushing back on the compulsory alcohol culture,” but does not think that labeling cancer risks alone would reduce drinking.
“It took massive public awareness campaigns to link cigarettes and lung cancer firmly in people’s minds,” Martin said. “But the labels would be the first step.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS