On Friday, USA surgeon Vivek Murthy proposed a major change in the way America labels alcoholic beverages: alcohol must come with a tobacco-style warning, because alcohol is the leading cause of preventable cancer, similar to labeling Ireland will be released later this year. This has increased the focus on alcohol ahead of the scheduled update of the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans later this year, but it is unclear whether new labels should be added – their addition will require Congress to act.
However, the drinkers acted on their own. If the bars seem a little more empty this month, it could be because many people are taking happy hour deals for Dry January. The tradition of abstaining from alcohol for an entire month is becoming more and more popular.
According to data from polling organization CivicScience, one in four U.S. adults completed Dry January in 2024, up from 16% the year before. And estimates 15.5 million People in Britain, where the movement originated 12 years ago, said they planned to join this year, according to Alcohol Change UK, the charity behind the movement. In 2013, that number was just 4,000. Temporary sobriety is contagious, and study shows that pushing the bottle away for a month provides immediate health benefits. But whether the health benefits will last or reach those most in need remains unclear.
“The concept is a month-long detox or cleanse to get you ready for the rest of the year,” says Gautam Mehta, associate professor of hepatology at University College London. I don't think there's any evidence for that.” who studied the effects of month-long sobriety. “But people seem to have a better understanding of their relationship with alcohol and what they want to do with their relationship with drinking for the rest of the year.”
One year 2018 learn Mehta followed a group of moderate drinkers who quit drinking for a month and compared them to a control group that maintained their old habits. The most notable benefits for people who don't drink alcohol include better sleep and weight loss. They also experienced more subtle effects; Their blood pressure decreased and biomarkers of insulin resistance improved, a sign that their risk of developing diabetes was reduced.
And some people say a month of sobriety helps them cut back overall. In 2019, University of Sussex researchers analyzed one survey filled with several thousand people. They found that 59% of respondents said they drank less six months after Dry January and 32% said they had better physical health. However, only about 38% of people who started the survey followed up after six months.
However, just a short period of rest will not necessarily give the body time to fully recover from the effects of drinking alcohol. That's what two British doctors, also identical twins, demonstrated when they performed their own surgery. experiment in 2015. (Mehta provided expertise on this experiment, which aired as an episode of the BBC television program Skyline.) Each person spent a month sober, and tests showed they had identical healthy livers. They then spent a month drinking 21 units of alcohol per week, the recommended limit for men in the UK at the time (it has since been revised down to 14 units). There were differences in how they got the job done: One drank three units (about a large glass of wine) every day for a month, and the other only drank once a week, but drank 21 units. By the end of the month, both had more severe hepatitis. For the binge twins, it became clear that even a six-day break between binges was not enough time for the organ to heal completely.