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.”
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS