Moderate Drinking Can Damage the Brain, Claim Researchers (theguardian.com) 325
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.
How much is a unit? (Score:5, Informative)
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So these people did not have a "moderate" alcohol intake, they had a high alcohol intake.
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They were drinking this over the course of a week. It would be a high amount if consumed in a single day, but not when spread out over 7.
Alcohol consumed daily != moderate consumption (Score:2)
They were drinking this over the course of a week. It would be a high amount if consumed in a single day, but not when spread out over 7.
If you are on average consuming one or more pints of beer every day then that is a rather brisk consumption of the product. Just because they aren't typically drinking enough to get plastered doesn't make it moderate unless you are comparing them to alcoholics.
Re:Alcohol consumed daily != moderate consumption (Score:4, Informative)
Four pints over seven days isn't one or more per day.
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>unless you are comparing them to alcoholics.
Study performed in London.....
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If you are on average consuming one or more pints of beer every day then that is a rather brisk consumption of the product.
One pint of beer a day does not an alcoholic make, unless you are looking at statistics designed to generate tax revenues. It has to impinge upon your life in some way; it's got to affect your health, or your social status, or in some other way actually negatively impact your life.
Now, if you are a delicate flower, and drinking an eleven percent microbrew every day, maybe that's alcoholism. But a pint a day of a five percent ale? That's in a grey area at most.
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If you are on average consuming one or more pints of beer every day then that is a rather brisk consumption of the product.
You appear to have misspelled "hour" as "day" .
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According to Crash and Eddie, the secret to happiness is to be very very stupid. That might be the reason why we here in Europe are so tremendously happy...
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People in the US tend to be lightweights and consider anything more than one or two drinks per week excessive, yet they have very low happiness rates and poor quality of life.
Our alcohol consumption was about four times higher during the period of the american revolution. One wonders just how alcohol-fueled the tea party was.
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According to the latest guidelines, it is above moderate consumption.
A pint of beer every day is definitely high consumption.
I'm not trying to act holy, I'm going to a music festival in a couple of weeks, where they daily intake will probably be around 10-15 pints for most people. But it's certainly not healthy, at least not if it's something you do on a regular basis.
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Depends, if they were Irish they might call that extremely low alcohol intake.
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It's all relative. My wife keeps trying to convince me I'm an alcoholic, and I only drink 1-3 16oz US beers (2.5%) each week. I never drink more than 1 on the same day, never on consecutive days, never more than 3 in a week, and when I pick up one of the 5% beers, I actually get a buzz so that's considered a "binge" for me.
To my wife, 3-7 units per week = alcoholic.
To my Irish-descended Navy family, 3-7 units per week = teetotaler.
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Have you seen English women? If they didn't drink, the English people would die out.
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A pint a day certainly isn't "moderate consumption", it's a drinking problem.
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A pint a day certainly isn't "moderate consumption", it's a drinking problem.
Indeed, if it's a pint of whisky.
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"According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,1 moderate alcohol consumption is defined as having up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men."
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/faq... [cdc.gov]
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Most people would not agree with that definition.
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14 units (UK guidance per week for men an women) is 4 pints of high strength beer (5.2%)
Wait, they call 5.2% high strength beer? No wonder California and Oregon are handling the earth right now.
Moderate? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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The 1920s called, they wanted their busybody-temperance movement back.
The UK government is funding studies like these by the boatload. Who cares if 95% of them have negative results? 5% of them have findings that are statistically significant at the 5% level, so that's enough for the government to order people what to do (or not to do).
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The 1920s called, they wanted their busybody-temperance movement back.
Your AA sponsor called and wondered why you weren't at the last meeting...
The UK government is funding studies like these by the boatload.
And that is relevant why? And what does it have to do with the definition of "moderate drinking"?
Re:Moderate? (Score:5, Insightful)
The high-school-level statistical explanation: Statistical studies are often described as "statistically significant" if their results could happen by chance less than 5% of the time. You can usually find such a study by luck if you try 14 times.
The ugly reality: You usually need many fewer than 14 tries, because of how exploratory analyses and controlling for related variables violate the assumptions underlying the probability calculations. Researchers never have enough information to really adjust for their statistical manipulations of the data. This study is particularly weak because it only used ~511 people (out of the 550 claimed in the summary, 23 had pre-existing anomalies in brain structure or missing data, and 16 had poor-quality brain scans, and they dropped some other people out for specific sub-analyses) and they broke these into lots of smaller groups to try to control for variables that could influence alcohol consumption and/or hippocampus shrinkage.
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In the US, it is. I hit this most summers easily. Figure:
1x with coworkers after work
2x while grilling a family meal
2x while at a neighborhood cookout
1x kicking back answering late night email
Re:Moderate? (Score:4, Informative)
A drink or two a week? That's light drinking. I think you must move in social circles where people rarely drink at all.
In southern Germany, for example, it's not at all unusual to have a beer with your lunch, and another with dinner. In France or Italy, it will be a glass of wine - about the same amount of alcohol. That's 1-2 drinks per day, every day. Plus a couple of extra drinks with your buddies on Friday or Saturday. That's average, or moderate drinking in cultures where alcohol is a normal part of life. I'm typing this in the evening, after work, while sipping my second beer of the day.
As in all things in life, there's a trade-off. Alcohol helps people relax after a stressful day. It also has a few health benefits (or some of the other things contained in drinks do). However, it's also not great for your liver, and possibly your brain, and alcohol abuse is a possibility. Life's a bitch, and then you die.
Heck, you can die from drinking too much water. [latimes.com]
30 years? (Score:2, Insightful)
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are you sure it is not age related? between 20 & 50 is a long time. I know I cant do now what i could do when i was 20
Stop it! If you correlate more facts the data can't be spun in the desired way. Shame on you.
Age corrected. (Score:5, Informative)
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
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I can tell you that after almost 2000 years of moderate drinking I
isn't that the point? (Score:3)
Oh dear (Score:2, Insightful)
*Pops open another cold one, leans back, doesn't give a shit*
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Sounds like my meds (Score:2)
"Moderate" drinkers? (Score:2)
So these people who ingest 140-210 ml of ethanol per week are considered moderate drinkers?
I think my hippocampus is safe for now.
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Wow (Score:2)
Or maybe... (Score:5, Interesting)
Moderation (Score:2)
Apparently 14 to 21 units is in this study categorized as moderate drinking. It sounds like rather a lot to me. It's decidedly more than the occasional glass of wine with dinner or drinking alcohol at social functions. For the age group in question, it sounds like a lot and adverse effects shouldn't be all that surprising?
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What?! (Score:2)
That not true! Me brain go worksing still! Drinking good! ;)
Have to recalculate (Score:2)
Because I read now that a 750ml bottle of wine contains 10 units of alcohol, while I was always taught that it contains six glasses, and that normal glasses all more or less compared in their alcohol amount (and were therefore considered a 'unit'). So 21 units would be 2 bottles of wine a week. That, in my mind, is still somewhat heavy drinking. Not overly so, but still.
gaps in data or other issues (Score:2)
Sounds like they drank too much to me...
Units? (Score:2)
Yes but... (Score:2)
six pints of beer (Score:2)
I imagine there is a big difference, biologically speaking, if you have one beer a night, Monday through Saturday, than if you were to drink six pints on a Friday night. Experience tells me it certainly feels different the next morning.
Official response from Scottish peer reviewers: (Score:3)
"U feckin' knobs are lookin' fer a burst mooth."
SkÃl, as they say here in Iceland (Score:3)
Think I'll wait a week, until the next study contradicts this one.
Re:Cause and effect... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Cause and effect... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all consistent with being stupid, so the two explanations are not mutually exclusive.
Re:Cause and effect... (Score:4, Insightful)
So it's stupid to enjoy something that tastes good and makes you pleasantly light-headed?
Neo-puritans be crazy.
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No, I didn't say that and don't endorse the original theory. I merely stated that you didn't say anything to refute the original claim. Your post was void of non-trivial content, so to say.
Re:Cause and effect... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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I want to find a way to say "drinking increases creativity" in a way that doesn't sound so unilateral.
I'm not really sure it helps much with creativity, at least in my case, but there's something there. For me, I almost want to say it just facilitates my willingness to sit in one place and work on the thing I've been meaning to work on, whether it's something creative or some kind of drudgery/chore. I don't know that it makes a lot of sense, because promoting focus isn't something I'd attribute to alcohol.
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Guess almost the whole world (except for the muslim world) are drunks to you.
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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.
BTW, the definition of units is poorly defined here. Below is a link to the UK web page that shows what they mean. For me, I would have to be on a drinking spree to drink 6L of lager a week. I enjoy alcohol but I tend to limit it to a couple of coolers at occasional BBQs and a couple of glasses of wine at special occasions and nights out with friends.
https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/a... [drinkaware.co.uk]
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My thought is:
"BEER......it's not just for breakfast anymore....."
Re:Cause and effect... (Score:5, Funny)
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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So it's stupid to enjoy something that tastes good and makes you pleasantly light-headed?
Neo-puritans be crazy.
I dunno, what's the main ingredient in alcohol? (in the voice of the Church Lady) Hmm... could it be... Satan?
By the way, watch the documentary How Beer Saved The World. It's easy to find online. Do you see how long humans have been consuming alcohol and that it's even a core element to our culture? Society hasn't disintegrated yet has it? How do you explain that?
The fact is no one lives forever. You're going to die from something and it's probably not going to be pleasant. I like to think of it this
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0.5 to 1% near beer poured in your morning gruel to kill pathogens during medieval times is not what we're talking about here. False comparison.
Non-sequitir, try again. Get your facts straight and come back, then maybe we can have a rational discussion.
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Actually there is a strong positive correlation between IQ (measured in school students) and later alcohol consumption, especially wine.
See https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
Low IQ is associated with binge-drinking though.
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So consumption of alcohol is simply stupid?
Intentionally taking a drug to remove inhibitions and slow motor control just because you think you like it seems pretty stupid. I could understand if it was being done for some therapeutic reason.
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Fuck yeah. And get rid of refined sugar, candies, and deep fried foods. Those, too, are poisons that are consumed by stupid people to make themselves feel better while destroying their bodies.
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Fuck yeah. And get rid of refined sugar, candies, and deep fried foods. Those, too, are poisons that are consumed by stupid people to make themselves feel better while destroying their bodies.
Ironically, this behavior is quite evident to be by design when reviewing the ingredients used to create McFood.
Yeast extracts and hydrolyzed proteins are considered excitotoxins, and are added to create that feel-good effect, and also make you crave it again.
Just another day in the land of Greed and Capitalism.
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Yeast extracts and hydrolyzed proteins are considered excitotoxins, and are added to create that feel-good effect, and also make you crave it again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hmmm, not mentioned in this article. Reference? Monosodium Glutamate, OTOH, is an almost pure excitotoxin -- Glutamate in the brain being the number one excitotoxin that causes cell death by overstimulation -- and yes, Mickey-D's food is often loaded with MSG (especially their "chicken nuggets"). Nothing in the article suggest
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Fuck yeah. And get rid of refined sugar, candies, and deep fried foods. Those, too, are poisons that are consumed by stupid people to make themselves feel better while destroying their bodies.
We should ban them because tax dollars are used to pay for people's healthcare. Fast food joints should had to pay the real cost for the food they sell, the social, health and environmental costs. By having tax payers cover most of the costs, we're propping up an entire industry through what is effectively a welfare system for corporations.
Businesses should be able to operated on their own, without assistance from tax payers. And that includes paying for all the aspects of their own business, and passing th
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Red meat is a poison too, but I always see you stuffing a burger in your face.
The risk of consuming certain foods is often reduced or eliminated by simply adopting the concept of moderation.
By comparison, there is no amount of alcohol that has been proven to be of benefit, even with moderation. It is quite clearly, a poison.
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By comparison, there is no amount of alcohol that has been proven to be of benefit, even with moderation. It is quite clearly, a poison.
Stop lying. You're basing your statements on one flawed study. Notice the amounts consumed by the participants. They're way over what any reasonable person would call "moderate".
Also, this:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/n... [harvard.edu]
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false,
ethyl-alcohol has a large therapeutic dosage range, so can be used for a number of things with a high safety margin, by untrained persons.
1) Disinfecting wounds
2) As disinfecting oral rinse
3) general mild short term pain relief
4) a temporary mood elevator
5) a temporary (poorly performing) sleep aide
6) sterilization of tools like tweezers before use
I think its more fair to say it does not benefit chronic conditions.
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Points 3, 4 and 5.
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By comparison, there is no amount of alcohol that has been proven to be of benefit, even with moderation. It is quite clearly, a poison.
Red wine has been shown to have positive effects on your heart health.
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Do you advocated imprisonment to cure the drinking problem?
A proponent of incarceration for weed as well?
If you don't favor laws - OK. But I hope you don't mind that I'll have a nice glass of red wine tonight with my meal. Unless I'm having Indian food in which case I'll have beer.
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The only reason it is legal today is because addiction demands it should be.
No, it's legal because we're not at the mercy of neo-puritans like you.
Beer tastes good (well, good beer does), wine tastes good, whisky tastes good and so on. I know that's why I enjoy drinking it, in moderation. Is alcohol dangerous in high doses* dangerous? Yes. So is water or sugar or fat or anything else we consume.
* Notice the weekly consumption level mentioned in TFA.
Alcohol is a poison to the human body regardless of amount consumed, and there is no longer a point in debating it. Stupidity attempts to dismiss this fact in favor of a number of ignorant excuses to consume it.
So because one study shows that it may be dangerous to drink to the maximum recommended limit, all alcohol consumption is inherently da
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it is an acute poison, but the body is also very well adapted at processing it. In all things moderation -- an occasional glass of wine or beer won't hurt anyone.
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Be aware! Overconsumption of water can lead to death. Even moderate consumption, if sustained over time, can poison your brain and body. There's no right or wrong, but that is the choice being made here.
I read that on the Internet, so it must be true [tylervigen.com].
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Be aware! Overconsumption of water can lead to death.
Overconsumption of water can lead to death actually [go.com]. It can even result in a wrongful death lawsuit against a radio station to the tune of $16.5 million dollars in damages.
Re: Cause and effect... (Score:5, Funny)
I kinda suspect that sex didn't even cross their mind. This is Slashdot, after all.
Re:Cause and effect... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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When I read "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.", I decided that a 77%, 65% or even 35% risk was too high, and will aim for 22-29 units a week, which seems to be a safe range.
Plus, I know it's England, but since when is 3 drinks a day, every day of the week, moderate?
It's moderate in that you'll never proceed from a small buzz to drunk if only drinking 3 units a day. It's certainly within the "norm
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First, that's still a considerable amount of alcohol, far more than most drinkers drink on a daily basis, and quite sufficient to give a 140lb man or 180lb woman a BAC of 0.08% (the limit at which the CDC considers it binge drinking) if drunk quickly. That's at least pretty thoroughly tipsy if you're not accustomed to it, which is probably a good gauge of the fundamental effects it's having on your body.
Second, that's a weekly estimate, not daily, and pretty much all the drinkers I know tend to concentrate
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That's at least pretty thoroughly tipsy if you're not accustomed to it,
If you average 3 units per day, you're by necessity accustomed to it.
And 3 alcohol units is about two pints (British beer, British pints), which to me seems like a moderate amount of alcohol which a typical Brit might consume at the pub before going home.
Perhaps share a bottle of wine with the missus on the weekend, or have a couple of drinks with friends instead of the post-work beer.
Seems moderate to me, at least compared to what I grew up with, which was someone who drank a bottle of vodka a day.
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Over 0.08% is now 'binge drinking'? Jesus tits, they just keep moving the goalposts, they're on the 50 yardline now.
0.08% isn't drunk, it's 'very lightly buzzed'.
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Plus, I know it's England, but since when is 3 drinks a day, every day of the week, moderate?
3 units is one pint of beer. One pint of beer a day isn't moderate, it's abstemious.
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Perhaps it's not that drinking makes you stupid, but rather you have to be stupid in the first place to drink.
In absence of the data in TFA, on what grounds do you base this statement?
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It's 'legal enough' in whatever state you live in. Ask any teen you trust to help you find some.
Getting high CBD low THC won't be easy, but try the regular 'killer green bud' AKA KGB. If it works for you, then you can find the 'high free' stuff.
Re:Perhaps something more complex is involved (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
I think you are hitting on something here. What if it is not that drinkers are more social, but that the social behaviors they tend to engage in are more risky? Does drinking influence people to engage in the risky social behaviors, or is it just coincidence? What does the answer to that question say about the risks of drinking?
Lots of unknowns here, agreed, but can't answer the question if you don't ask it.
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They claimed correlation, while admitting there were some notable uncontrolled confounders, exceptions to the implied rule, and limitations to their analysis.
Then they went on to say this justified the British government's recent move to reduce the alcohol consumption guidelines, which would only be a valid conclusion if they demonstrated cause and effect, so maybe they think they did demonstrate that.
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Moderate alcohol consumption can impair cognitive function, says study
They say 'can' which means, in standard medical journal lingo, 'might possibly'. This is common. It's just a way to safeguard against the many pitfalls of asserting something too strongly without rigorous backup in the medical community (which is pretty strict on this kind of thing).
So no, they aren't asserting a definite cause-and-effect, just saying 'it might be this way'.
Yes, implied. (Score:2)
Did the study state there was a concrete cause-and-effect aspect? Or did they just show their results that show a correlation?
Yes they impled cause-and-effect :
the original BMJ article title is Moderate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes and cognitive decline: longitudinal cohort study.
It implies that moderate drinking is a potential factor that contributes to the brain damage.
This is then speculated even further by the press, with titles such as "Can Damage The Brain".
The PHDComics on Science News Cycle [phdcomics.com] applies as usual.
The correct wording would have been " Link found between drinking and brain".
i.e.: w
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I'd call that a fucking lightweight.
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Don't forget, we banned alcohol entirely for years and still have dry counties and municipalities, as well as States where you can't sell alcohol on Sundays. Hell, Jack Daniels is distilled in a town where it's illegal to sell it.
There are social standards involved. And by UK standards, we are sheltered lightweights.
Re: Moderate drinking? (Score:2)
American substance abuse counselors are not exactly unbiased on the issue. They have an explicit interest in making more people think they need professional help.