A University of Idaho faculty member has joined a select group of researchers on a project that could change the U.S. government’s dietary advice on alcohol.

Shelley McGuire, director of UI’s Margaret Ritchie School of Family and Consumer Sciences, will join eight other experts from Harvard University, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins and other institutions to assist the government with its Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

“It’s the government’s official recommendation for what we should eat,” McGuire said about the guidelines. “They come out every five years.”

This committee was selected by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. McGuire is Idaho’s first and only member to be inducted into the National Academy of Medicine. She was elected in 2022.

McGuire and her fellow researchers are tasked with evaluating research on the topic of alcohol. They have been asked to answer eight questions such as: What is the relationship between alcohol consumption and risk of certain types of cancer? Or: What is the relationship between alcohol consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease?

Because McGuire’s expertise centers around breastfeeding, she will study how consuming alcohol during lactation affects the mother and infant.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans already warns pregnant women not to drink alcohol, but more information is needed about breastfeeding mothers.

“Generally, moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages by a woman who is lactating (up to one standard drink in a day) is not known to be harmful to the infant, especially if the woman waits at least two hours after a single drink before nursing or expressing breast milk,” the Dietary Guidelines for Americans says.

In fact, McGuire said the latest guidelines are the first to have food recommendations for babies up to 2 years old.

McGuire will spend the year studying thousands of research papers on alcohol and lactations. When the committee finishes their research, they will present their findings to the United States Department of Agriculture. The government will then use their findings to make any necessary updates to the guidelines.

“We are not making recommendations,” McGuire said. “We’re handing off our evaluation of the science to the people who will make recommendations.”

Those guidelines affect all government food programs, she said.

According to UI, McGuire has previously helped guide recommendations for breastfeeding mothers. Early in the pandemic, she helped lead a research team that allayed fears among COVID-19-positive mothers about breastfeeding, finding that their breast milk supplies infants with crucial antibodies.

Kuipers can be reached at akuipers@dnews.com