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* Health

# Even Small Amounts of Alcohol Can Cause Cancer, Surgeon General Says

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/udeHcDlJ.m3u8" -->
## Video: Even Small Amounts of Alcohol Can Cause Cancer, Surgeon General Says

[Watch (HLS stream): Even Small Amounts of Alcohol Can Cause Cancer, Surgeon General Says](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/udeHcDlJ.m3u8) (1:34)

![Even Small Amounts of Alcohol Can Cause Cancer, Surgeon General Says](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/udeHcDlJ/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2025-01-07. Alcohol is a leading cause of cancer, a risk that should be clearly labeled on drinks Americans consume, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy proposed on Friday._


---

Jan 7, 2025 9:20 PM UTC

---

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## Transcript

The harm of drinking alcohol is that it is a carcinogen, the chemical, alcohol, ETH, you know, on its own, ethyl alcohol, and it can cause mutations in cells, and it can cause cell damage, which we know can lead to, you know, cancer growth. So you want to minimize whatever you're going to do to damage your cells and mutate your cells. I think this has been a long time coming. I think they're just trying to get this information out to the general public that, you know, again, if you're going to drink, you have to be aware that there are health risks associated with it, besides the common ones that everyone is familiar with.

So I think having that reminder of that label right there on front of the bottle is just to be a little bit more mindful that, okay, I'm drinking. I'm still going to enjoy my drink, but I'm aware that it could potentially you know, cause my body some harm, and maybe I want to minimize how much I'm really doing of this. You know, there's been some studies with red wine and maybe some cardiovascular benefit. But I think as a whole, you know, the balancing, if you're going to get cardiovascular benefit, it's better to do it with exercise and with diet rather than, you know, drinking red wine. We used to say moderate drinking is okay, you know, one drink per day for women, two drinks per day for men.

You know, that was kind of what doctors were kind of preaching to their patients for many years. I think that's changed now. I do not tell my I tell them moderate drinking is, you know, maybe one a week. Maybe two a week, if that, you know, if you want to get some alcohol, I think daily drinking, and Gams is my opinion, is not a safe thing to do anymore now that we know the full dangers of it.

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