>> More than a quarter of Americans embrace January is a chance rethink the relationship with alcohol.

But as dry January winds down, the U.S. surgeon general is encouraging people to be more mindful of their drinking throughout the year earlier this month, Dr Vivek Murthy warned that light or even moderate drinking is harmful enough, but he's calling for cancer.

Warning labels aren't on alcohol.

Just like on cigarettes here.

Take a hard look at how alcohol impacts our health is.

Doctor Ashish did One-a vice chair for education at Northwestern School of Medicine.

Doctor did want thank you for joining us as to be a thank you so.

How does this new recommendation challenge what previously known or thought about the impact of drinking on our health?

>> I think.

Previous guidelines suggested that moderate alcohol consumption.

Was reasonable for Americans for people.

And this is challenging that by saying there is risk and danger, particularly around cancer that even moderate drinking is not healthy in moderate being one a day.

One drink a day for women and >> how many for men, 14 or less.

And I think that's one of the morning ounces.

14 drinks in a week and week.

Okay, we're is a So that's one of the most important aspects of this report in the news is what is moderate alcohol consumption what people know about what they're drinking.

So again, 7 drinks a week or less for a woman.

Some of the reports say no averaging one drink a day for men, 14 drinks for less a week or 2 drinks a day twice as much for men.

how does this square with previous research that we've heard that maybe a glass of red wine is actually good for your heart.

>> A lot of those reports were based on studies that were not deemed to be very rigorous.

When put up to the test and more rigorous studies were done and even actually some of the reports are coming out now that suggests drinking at moderate levels might be good for heart.

A lot of the experts in the field believes that that research is not square.

And we should not be drinking to reduce our heart health.

And so the new reports suggesting cancer is a concern.

And are exist.

Understanding that there is a heart health benefit.

Should make us reexamined are moderate use habits and the recommendations that are out there.

What we know about how drinking leads to cancer.

So alcohol is metabolized, bar body.

There is in a tablet called Estelle to hide and both an animal research as well as in some of understanding in humans is tabulate can cause oxidative stress that causes mutations that lead to cancer or some people are some populations more at risk than others.

It's a great question.

If there's individual that has a family history cancer, if there's people on certain medications and that probably increases the risk.

The studies are population-wide.

And so the findings are as a population.

The more we drink, the more our cancer risk goes up.

It's important to add moderate alcohol use.

That's 7 or 14 drinks.

The up.

But they're still small.

And so that's why we're not in a period of saying nobody should drink and we need to go back to abstaining and politician.

So there's a lot of evidence out there.

There are uncertainties in some controversies and that's where if someone is less is more, risks are low.

But there is a risk.

There is a risk hits.

It sounds like that is the reason it is enough of a risk, though that the surgeon general suggests.

>> A warning label on alcohol like the one that we see on cigarettes.

>> It's a warning labels on big also carry controversy like so many things.

Some countries are more forward about warning labels where maybe down the middle to cigarettes.

That's a jewel.

Now that the risks with cigarettes were known to be crater and the warning labels have made an impact.

There's going to be controversy debate about alcohol is a warning label or cancer is a warning label.

And alcohol.

And I view it is education.

If we can educate the public about risk, understanding that there is risk the risks.

Very the risk may be small.

And again, importantly, understand what category drinking you fallen.

lot of us think were drinking in a moderate level.

But if you actually look at the numbers in the studies, we might be heavy alcohol consumers.

So I've you warning labels in their controversy as a means of educating the public.

And to that point of sort of knowing what category of drink or you fall into.

>> Do we need to evaluate our relationship with boos altogether for sure.

I think this is a call to every individual to say and ask themselves, let me be honest and understand how I use alcohol.

>> Clearly positive aspects with you in our society.

Social connectivity, relaxation.

That remains.

But if we're honest with ourselves about how much we consume in a day in a week, understand some of these some of this research in some of these categories.

We can say, OK, I am in that moderate use category.

That's okay.

But even there less is more.

Were that concerned?

I mean, the heaviest category and I know there's no debate about that.

Should reduce.

And then talk to your doctor.

Talk health care provider and they can give you some more information about these reports and then how to cut back.

>> What kind of what more research do you think is needed on this topic?

What else do we need to know?

You know, there's so much research on it.

A lot of its observational research.

So these reports are finding associations, the surgeon She said it was causal a causation.

But randomized control trials which are hard to do.

They can still yield unwieldy results.

But more research using randomized control trials will help.

For these categories that we're now looking at, which is moderate use and even with a moderate use.

The direction things are going in is men instead of 14 drinks in a week.

Should be down to 7 or less than a week.

And women are already at 7 or less per week.

The cutoff should potentially lower.

So can we do studies that look at these lower numbers?

And relieve some of the anxiety around drinking?

So we say, you know, it's OK, 3 solo and low moderate.

You see socail drink, but you can probably cut it off sooner than than