A young woman in a bar waits for her Tinder date and asks for a beer to help calm her nerves—or soften a possible letdown. Longtime girlfriends gather for a getaway, raising their cocktail glasses high for an Instagram selfie. A mom finally gets a quiet moment at home, sinking into the couch with a glass of wine, which she jokingly calls her “mom juice.”
These moments may look carefree and fun. But beneath the surface, alcohol carries more risks than many women realize. A growing body of evidence shows that even moderate alcohol use—one drink or less per day for a woman—can be a significant health risk, raising the risk of chronic disease and even death, especially for women.
Some other numbers and trends are, well, sobering. A 2025 Gallup poll suggests the percentage of Americans who said they consume alcohol fell to 54%, the lowest point since Gallup started asking the question. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that between 2016 and 2021, rates of alcohol-related deaths increased by 35% in women compared to 27% in men. For women, the majority of alcohol-related deaths are due to chronic health conditions, whereas for men, most alcohol-related deaths are due to acute causes like accidents and driving fatalities.
“Honestly, we don't have the research to recommend exactly what number of drinks would be safe for women,” says Sherry McKee, PhD, a Yale School of Medicine researcher and director of the Yale SCORE Program for Sex Differences in Alcohol Use Disorder. “I'm not saying that there's not one, or that there is one. We just don't have evidence to show what a safe level of consumption is, or conversely, the evidence to document that no amount is safe.”
