The Health Risks of Alcohol, a Red Dye Ban and Commercial Space Flights

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  Happy Monday, listeners, for Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.

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  Let's kick off the week by catching up on some science news you might have missed.

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  Last Tuesday,

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  a U.S. department of Health and Human Services committee released a new draft report on alcohol.

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  The review of existing data tied just one drink a day to increased risk of liver cirrhosis,

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  oral cancer and esophageal cancer.

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  The committee also found

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  that alcohol use was associated with a higher risk of death from seven types of cancer.

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  And this isn't the first time that the health effects of alcohol have made headlines in 2025.

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  Earlier this month,

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  Surgeon General Vivek Murthy argued that alcoholic drinks should come with cancer warning labels.

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  The report did find some counterintuitive connections, too.

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  People who had one drink a day had a lower risk of ischemic stroke than people who didn't,

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  and women who consumed one, two or three drinks per day had a lower risk of diabetes.

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  But these apparent benefits are fickle.

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  The lower risk of ischemic stroke, for example,

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  can disappear if people even occasionally drink four or five servings in one sitting.

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  And women who consumed two alcoholic drinks per day may have had a lower risk overall of diabetes,

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  but they also had significantly higher risks of ischemic stroke and liver disease.

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  So the details might seem kind of confusing, but the takeaway is simple enough.

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