Cancer warnings on alcohol may deter drinking, study says : NPR
Current alcohol warning labels in the United States have been in place since 1989.
Oscar Wong/Moment RF/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Oscar Wong/Moment RF/Getty Images
Would you be more likely to reduce your alcohol consumption if you knew that alcohol increases the risk of cancer? A new study that tested updated alcohol warning label designs with consumers suggests the answer is yes.
Current alcohol warning labels have been in place since 1989 and warn of the risks of drinking alcohol while pregnant or while driving or operating heavy machinery. They also include a vague indication that alcohol “may cause health problems.”
But research suggests that people tend to ignore these labels, says Anna Grummon, an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. And she says the labels haven’t kept pace with growing evidence about other serious health risks linked to alcohol consumption.
“For example, we have known for many years that alcohol contributes to cancer, but most Americans are unaware of this connection,” says Grummon. Alcohol is the third preventable cause of cancer, behind tobacco and obesity.
Test a new language
Grummon and his colleagues wanted to see if more specific messages about the health harms of alcohol would raise awareness and motivate people to drink less.
So they created eight new labels warning of a range of health risks linked to alcohol consumption, such as cancer, liver disease, dementia and high blood pressure. They then asked more than 1,000 American adults to read them in random order, accompanied by a control message and the current warning. All participants were of legal drinking age and reported drinking at least one drink per week.
Want the latest stories on the science of healthy living? Subscribe to NPR Health report.
The researchers found that all of the new messages did a better job than the current warning at teaching study participants something they didn’t know about the health risks of drinking, and almost all were more effective at motivating them to want to reduce their drinking.
“And the warnings that particularly resonated with consumers tended to be about cancer,” Grummon says.
The study, which appears in the Journal of Alcohol and Drug Studiesdidn’t measure whether people actually drank less after seeing the labels – it only looked at their motivation to reduce their consumption. Grummon says this is the next phase of the research for which she and her colleagues are currently recruiting participants.
But previous research has shown that stronger messages like those used in this study can lead to behavior change, says Johannes Thrul, an addiction researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was not involved in the new study. He cites a real-world experiment in Canada that found that labels warning that alcohol can cause cancer led to a reduction in alcohol sales. That study ended shortly after complaints from the alcohol industry.
“It is therefore reasonable to expect that the warning labels that performed well here in the study would also work well if implemented,” says Thrul.
In a statement, Amanda Berger, senior vice president for science and research at the Distilled Spirits Council, a major alcohol industry trade group, said: “Current U.S. health warnings have informed consumers for decades about general health risks.
Growing calls for stricter health warnings
The study comes at a time when public health researchers are increasingly emphasizing the health harms associated with alcohol consumption.
Just before leaving office early last year, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for requiring alcohol labels to inform consumers about cancer risks. It published an advisory detailing how alcohol increases the risk of seven different types of cancer, including breast, colorectal and oral cancer.
And last summer, about two dozen consumer and public health groups asked the Trump administration to add a cancer warning to alcohol labels.
At the same time, the Trump administration has relaxed its alcohol guidelines. It released a major report into the health harms of alcohol after criticism from the alcohol industry. This study was commissioned under the Biden administration to help inform the latest update to the federal dietary guidelines for Americans.
“We found that the risks of various chronic diseases start even at levels as low as one or two drinks per day,” says Katherine Keyes, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and one of the authors of that overlooked study.
When the Trump administration released the new guidelines in January, it removed specific daily alcohol limits. Instead, the guidelines simply advise “consuming less alcohol for better health,” without specifying quantities.
State-level action
Thomas Gremillion is director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, one of the groups that has asked the Trump administration to strengthen health warnings on alcohol labels. He doesn’t expect that to happen anytime soon.
“I would be shocked if a bill to update alcohol health warnings passed in the current Congress,” Gremillion said.
However, he says there has been some movement at the state level. “A bill passed in Alaska, for example, requires alcohol retailers to be warned about cancer at the point of sale,” he notes. “And a similar bill was introduced in Massachusetts.”
Keyes, of Columbia University, welcomes measures to better inform consumers. “We know that cancer risk increases in a dose-response manner with alcohol consumption,” she says. In other words, the more people drink, the higher the risks.
“Above all, I want to make sure that the American people have accurate information so that they can make clear, conscious decisions, with all the information at their disposal,” Keyes said. “I think that’s what the American public wants and what they deserve.”
Amanda Berger of the Distilled Spirits Council said that, like many things, alcohol comes with potential risks and benefits. She added: “We don’t recommend anyone to drink for health benefits. »
