Adults should have no more than one drink a day, a team of scientists says

Health newsAdults should have no more than one drink a day, a team of scientists saysTheir conclusion differs from the current U.S. dietary guidelines.Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00They study found men who had more than 6.5 drinks per week and women who had more than seven per week had greater than a 1-in-1,000 lifetime risk of dying from alcohol-related diseases or injuries.David Attie / Getty Images FileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleJune 9, 2026, 5:00 AM EDTBy Barbara MantelAmericans should limit their alcohol consumption to no more than one drink per day, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.The recommendation — from an international team of scientists — differs from the U.S. dietary guidelines, both past and present. Previous guidelines recommended a daily limit of two alcoholic drinks for men and one for women. The latest version, released by the Trump administration in January, is less precise. It recommends only that Americans “consume less alcohol for better overall health.” The current less-is-best message is accurate but too vague, said study co-author Priscilla Martinez-Matyszczyk, deputy scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute, an independent nonprofit organization in California. People need quantified guidance so they can make informed decisions about their drinking, she said.Martinez-Matyszczyk is part of a team of American, Canadian and British scientists that was asked in 2022 to review alcohol research to help the federal government write the latest dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments. The Biden administration released the scientists’ report in January 2025, but its findings were sidelined under the Trump administration, according to an editorial published alongside...