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Moderate Drinking Can Damage the Brain, Claim Researchers (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol can damage the brain and impair cognitive function over time, researchers have claimed. Writing in the British Medical Journal, researchers from the University of Oxford and University College London, describe how they followed the alcohol intake and cognitive performance of 550 men and women over 30 years from 1985. At the end of the study the team took MRI scans of the participants' brains. None of the participants were deemed to have an alcohol dependence, but levels of drinking varied. After excluding 23 participants due to gaps in data or other issues, the team looked at participants' alcohol intake as well as their performance on various cognitive tasks, as measured at six points over the 30 year period. The team also looked at the structure of the participants' brains, as shown by the MRI scan, including the structure of the white matter and the state of the hippocampus -- a seahorse-shaped area of the brain associated with memory. After taking into account a host of other factors including age, sex, social activity and education, the team found that those who reported higher levels of drinking were more often found to have a shrunken hippocampus, with the effect greater for the right side of the brain. While 35% of those who didn't drink were found to have shrinkage on the right side of the hippocampus, the figure was 65% for those who drank on average between 14 and 21 units a week, and 77% for those who drank 30 or more units a week.
From the study: 1 unit is 10mL or 8g of alcohol. 14 units (UK guidance per week for men an women) is 4 pints of high strength beer (5.2%) or 5 large glasses of 14% wine. 24.5 units (US guidance for men) is equivalent to 7 pints of beer or 9 glasses of wine.
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While 35% of those who didn't drink were found to have shrinkage on the right side of the hippocampus, the figure was 65% for those who drank on average between 14 and 21 units a week, and 77% for those who drank 30 or more units a week.
Per the article 14 units = approximately 6 pints of beer. Is that really moderate drinking? That's basically having a drink or more a day. Not alcoholic territory or anything but that's pretty steady consumption. Moderate drinking to my mind would be maybe a pint or two a week at most. Not having a drink with dinner every night. I'm not being critical. If someone enjoys a beer or glass of wine with dinner that's fine as long as they do so responsibly but it isn't what I consider moderate consumption.
Anyway, alcohol isn't good for you. News at 11... I'm pretty sure that anyone drinking a pint a day isn't overly concerned about the health effects, good or bad.
So consumption of alcohol is simply stupid?
Could it be that a lot of people enjoy alcohol because it tastes good, and that we happen to enjoy a light buzz, without feeling the urge to get totally plastered?
Eat the rich.
That's all consistent with being stupid, so the two explanations are not mutually exclusive.
Well no, not even close. Epidemiologically we do not know everything that leads to drinking, nor everything that drinking leads to, which means we have unknown confounders in a complex system. Over 30 years those confounders will grow to a massive interference level.
Consider this conundrum that caused a lot of panic in the early days of epidemiology. Does drinking cause lung cancer? The answer was a surprising yes. Every study came up positive.
Today, we know that to be false. Why? Because drinkers also tend to be smokers. When you control for smoking and keeping company with smokers, the effect goes away completely. That is what we call a confounder.
Now we see that moderate drinking leads to hippocampal shrinkage. Does that mean drinking is the problem? Not necessarily. As TFS says, they did control for a host of things, but were those ALL the relevant things? The answer is usually no.
Over a period of 30 years things change, ALOT. The lifestyles of the subjects change, their exposure to various environmental effects change, their hormonal setups change. What if drinkers tend to be more social? Just that single difference would introduce them to a whole host of different exposures when compared to non-drinkers, and none of those exposures would have anything to do with drinking itself.
There is no doubt an association between hipppocampal shrinkage and drinking, but what that association consists of is less certain. That is why the original point stands.
This is self reported levels of drinking. While I tend to believe people who self-report "never drinking" I tend to doubt that the 14-21 units of alcohol per week crowd are 100% truthful about "never binging" - occasional weeks might include 21 units of alcohol in a 6 hour period.
Plus, I know it's England, but since when is 3 drinks a day, every day of the week, moderate?
Four pints over seven days isn't one or more per day.
They turned to drinking to cope with dealing with stupid people at their work and the real cause of the problem is that they lost brain cells from dealing with said stupid people.
We'll make great pets
So it's stupid to enjoy something that tastes good and makes you pleasantly light-headed?
Neo-puritans be crazy.
Eat the rich.
are you sure it is not age related? between 20 & 50 is a long time
Age was taken into account. : there's a statistical link between the two.
Still, some people degraded faster than others in this span of time.
And those were significantly more likely to also be drinking.
- Thus the actual conclusion that one real scientist should take home
- Thus also the baseless spin that the press (and even the original BMJ article) are trying to take on it : even light drinking cause brain destruction
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The study cites 14-21 units/week of alcohol as "moderate consumption". That is not moderate, it's definitely into the "high" range. Thus, the conclusion is flawed when the paper talks about moderate consumption, because it isn't.
It you would read the paper, it supports the current UK recommended limits (14 units per week maximum) and posits that the current US limits are too high.
That is perfectly in line with what I've stated in this thread and in other comments on this article.
Eat the rich.
The drinking culture of England isn't stupid?
Bullshit. If a Brit drinks 21/week. That's 21 on Friday night.
If a Scot drinks 21/week, he's just lying. That was monday.
We're not even going to talk about the Mics. If they have less than 21 in their blood they shake.
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I kinda suspect that sex didn't even cross their mind. This is Slashdot, after all.
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