New US dietary guidelines tell us to drink less, but stopped short of giving some clear limits.

As Americans rethink their drinking habits, trends like Dry January are gaining momentum.

Our Christy Dutton talks with a physician about how alcohol impacts your health, and what happens when you stop drinking it.

That in today's medical news.

Doctor Mona Lisa Taylor, internal medicine for Norton Health Care is here now.

Doctor Taylor, the new dietary guidelines for Americans.

The limit alcohol beverages section of this says consume less alcohol for better overall health.

That's a little different from the previous guidance, which said no more than one drink a day for women and two for men.

What do you advise your patients?

And does this go far enough in your opinion?

It's really interesting how they've changed those guidelines, because they seem to indicate that alcohol could be something that helps you socialize a little bit better.

And so they don't really have those limit recommendations the way we've seen in the past.

I will typically ask my patients about their alcohol use and if it's on a daily basis and how many drinks they're having in a day.

Because if you're using it as a stress reliever from a hard day or something else is going on, you think like it's helping with your sleep.

You might be having a drink every single day, or multiple drinks in a day, and that's going to impact your mental health and your physical health.

So how much is too much then what do you advise your patients?

I typically tell folks, if you're having alcohol every single day, if, women are having more than seven drinks in a week, that's concerning.

If men are having more than 14 drinks in a week, that's concerning.

And obviously I'm using the old guidelines there, but I think it's still gives patients a good framework.

To see and compare your alcohol use to what would be considered at risk.

Okay.

In the U.S., alcohol consumption on average has been going down since the Covid years 2020 and 2021.

And a lot of people believe that's the cultural, cultural shift from the younger generations not drinking as much.

So do you expect to see a shift in health?

In the, in Americans because of less alcohol consumption for these younger generations?

Potentially.

I find that some of the younger generation is also finding other things to relieve their stress.

We all deal with stress in different ways.

Some people exercise, some people eat.

Some people were using alcohol.

And I found a lot of the younger generation are finding other ways to relieve their stress.

Like what?

Which could be more like cannabis or marijuana type options.

And it's harder to gauge what that looks like because they might be vaping it, they might be doing edibles.

And we know that there's not really a regulated version of that just yet.

So I think we're all still trying to find stress relievers.

They just look a little different depending on our generation.

One trend that has been really taking off is dry January.

Yeah.

Do you see that in some of your patients and and is it a good idea.

Bad idea.

What's your advice.

I think it's great.

So, Dry January actually comes to us from the United Kingdom and it came from Alcohol Change UK, which is a nonprofit organization.

There in the United Kingdom that started this back in 2013.

And it started with a small group of people just realizing that, hey, you have all these holidays, everyone's indulging a little bit more, you're spending time with family and you're drinking more alcohol.

And January just became this great reset period.

Okay, so what is dry January 1st?

I should explain that.

Yeah.

So dry January is basically folks taking a break from alcohol for the entire month of January.

Okay.

And if you can make it, that's awesome.

If you can't make it.

They've also called it Damp January just because you've reduced your alcohol use.

Okay.

So the goal is to see how much your body has been impacted by the alcohol by just taking a break from it.

And it's a great way to start the new year because it's a great New Year's resolution.

Yeah, it is.

And can somebody see a health impacts from just abstaining from alcohol for one month?

Absolutely.

I think the biggest change that I've noticed for patients is the impact on the sleep and the impact on the mood, because a lot of people feel like, oh, the alcohol will help me sleep.

In actuality, alcohol shortens the sleep cycle, so you don't actually get as much of the REM, the rapid eye movement sleep where you actually dream.

And so when you don't have the alcohol on board, you go through the full sleep cycle.

You're dreaming more, you're sleeping more soundly through the night, and you're going to wake up in the morning feeling more refreshed.

As well as alcohol is a depressant.

I don't know about you, but Louisville in January and just Kentucky in January.

It feels like the doldrums.

It's just gray.

It's cold.

Like it's already depressing being outside.

And the alcohol's further a depressant.

So your mood is going to go down further.

So being without that alcohol will actually bring your mood up.

And you're going to feel a little bit better as well.

So those are the two biggest impacts I see from a mental health standpoint.

And from a physical standpoint.

It makes an impact on your blood pressure and particularly your liver.

So our liver is our natural detox mechanism that our body has.

And when you're not having as much alcohol, your liver's able to do a better job detoxing everything else for you because it's not constantly irritated.

Yeah.

This is so interesting.

Thank you so much, doctor.

Mona Lisa from Norton Health Care.

Thank you for walking us through this and giving us some insight on Dry January.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Christy.

Retailers report January has the lowest alcohol sales annually, and the slump has intensified over the past two years.

According to MarketWatch.