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Public Health On Call

977 - The Health Risks of Alcohol

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.6 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

About this episode:

Long-cited research has promoted potential health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption. But updated information disproves these claims and links drinking at any amount with increased cancer risk. In this episode: Professor Johannes Thrul, whose research covers substance use and addiction, details recent research on this topic and shares how to communicate these findings to help people make their own decisions around drinking.

Guests:

Johannes Thrul, PhD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Host:

Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.

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Transcript information:

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

0:05.9

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

0:16.3

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.

0:23.8

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

0:30.9

Hi listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers.

0:33.5

Alcohol is a leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S.

0:36.4

Johns Hopkins researcher Johannes Thruyl talks to Stephanie Desmond about how there's no safe amount of alcohol when it comes to cancer risk,

0:43.9

how norms have started to change around drinking, and how the U.S. needs better public health communications,

0:49.4

including updated warning labels on alcoholic beverages.

0:52.8

Let's listen.

0:54.3

Johannes Truel, thanks so much for joining me.

0:56.7

Thank you so much for having me.

0:58.2

So earlier this year, you co-authored an op-ed with your colleague Elizabeth Platt,

1:03.3

and this first sentence really struck me, and it said, alcohol causes cancer, and we

1:07.9

should be drinking less of it.

1:09.6

Unpack that for me, please.

1:11.1

Yeah, so the evidence has been clear for quite a while.

1:15.3

So alcohol is grouped with, together with cigarettes, right?

1:19.3

Tobacco smoking and asbestos is a group one carcinogen.

1:23.0

But what I would put forward is that this is actually not widely known in the population.

1:28.8

We said this in the editorial and so I will reiterate it here that the public health and the

1:34.8

cancer prevention community has some work to do to get this message out into the population.

...

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