16 ms·

Moderate drinking associated with atrophy in brain related to memory, learning

• melling 9y ago
  Maybe now we can put to rest the "coding while drunk" discussion that occurs on HN from time to time: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=code%20drunk&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=code%20drunk&sort=byPopularity...
• mortenjorck 9y ago
  Study finds correlation. Article mentions caveat that correlation is not causation. Headline explicitly states causation. This is certainly a very interesting correlation, and demands further study. Perhaps there is a causal link. But it's just (predictably) irresponsible journalism to head such a piece with a factually incorrect headline.
  • swsieber 9y ago
    They've probably been drinking (moderately)
    • jksmith 9y ago
      As long as we all drink the same amount, I don't care. Two shots Makers, one shot Noilly Pratt, splash of orange bitters. Shake in a jigger of ice. Pour it up and break out a RP box pressed Decade and one of Richardson's Trawler Trash series of books for accompaniment. Enjoy.
  • ams6110 9y ago
    Popular news is all clickbait now. I've just opted out.
    • baq 9y ago
      desperately seeking non-popular news with non-clickbait articles. got any referrals?
      • sp332 9y ago
        A print newspaper? Edit: I'm not being sarcastic. Even if you read the online version of a print paper, you're getting articles that weren't optimized for clicks.
        • DanBC 9y ago
          The Daily Mail is an example of a newspaper that has a very different online offering to the print version.
      • buckbova 9y ago
        CS Monitor shoots pretty straight https://www.csmonitor.com/ https://www.csmonitor.com/.
        • enraged_camel 9y ago
          Lest people think The Christian Science Monitor is a religiously biased pseudoscience outlet, it isn't. In fact it is one of the best news sources available internationally if you are looking for a fact-based news outlet with excellent reporting and minimal bias. This Reddit thread has more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cuun9/what_do_you_mean_the_christian_science_monitor/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cuun9/what_do_yo...
          • derekp7 9y ago
            Also, Christian Science is not the same thing as Scientology.
      • marmaduke 9y ago
        TrueReddit and TrueTrueReddit?
  • abawany 9y ago
    I also find that the recent cuts in editorial staff at various newspapers is having a noticeable effect on quality. I subscribe to the NYT and noticed that after their recent editorial layoff, some of the articles had some egregious spelling and syntax errors.
    • unethical_ban 9y ago
      I have noticed it too. I also believe some of the "hard news" articles have opinion on them in a manner that puts me off. WaPo isn't even trying to hide it.
  • leggomylibro 9y ago
    Study also looks at adults of average age 43 over 30 years; its subjects are heavily weighted in terms of age.
    • swiley 9y ago
      As someone who's young and only drank a couple of times it definitely feels permanent. Your thinking gets very cloudy very fast and then the cloudiness seems to have this exponential decay. Even days afterward I don't feel quite right.
  • philipov 9y ago
    Does that qualify it as fake news?
  • drngdds 9y ago
    Yup. This is par-for-the-course for science journalism.
  • grandalf 9y ago
    > Study finds correlation. Article mentions caveat that correlation is not causation. Headline explicitly states causation. Welcome to the Washington Post. In cases like this it's fairly obvious but across the board there is such a low standard for journalism that I can't bring myself to pay the $1 to subscribe. When Bezos bought it I had hoped we'd see a new era of high quality American journalism, but the opposite trend has occurred.
    • opportune 9y ago
      WaPo is 50% Trump and 50% a moderately better version of buzzfeed.
      • grandalf 9y ago
        Agreed. It's truly amazing that one of the world's richest men would buy one of America's great papers and allow it to abandon basic journalistic standards. In a sense this amounts to an act of sabotage. At first, I thought it was meant to be an insurance policy against politicians turning against Amazon, but now I have doubts about whether Bezos wishes the paper to do actual journalism.
  • chris_va 9y ago
    Interestingly, titles are generally written by a different person than the articles, and often a matter of contention with journalists.
  • gabrielgoh 9y ago
    Sure, counterfactual causation is the gold standard in science, but it is extremely difficult to pin down experimentally (in this case it requires an experiment, or a natural experiment, where people are forced to drink 2 drinks daily over a span of 30 years. This is not only impossible but unethical.). The judgement of causation from correlation is usually an art not a science, with the use of such things as instrumental variables or other such "soft" techniques, which boil down to opinion and expert knowledge. The article itself states that the authors believe there is an element of causation in the study "Alcohol might represent a modifiable risk factor for cognitive impairment, and primary prevention interventions targeted to later life could be too late." The "may" is, of course a kind of scientific hedging, but I do not think the journalists made an unfair reading of the paper. Bear in mind many of these articles are made in consultation with the authors themselves. If you have any problems with the conclusions of the article, you should take it to the authors of the paper itself, not the journalists
    • epistasis 9y ago
      I think the request here isn't to change this paper, or the article, but for the headline to be "Even moderate drinking correlated with atrophy in brain areas..." This is on the editor's heads.
      • gabrielgoh 9y ago
        i'm saying that headline says too little. The authors of the paper strongly suggest that there is a causative effect in the paper, and I think its very reasonable this is reflected in the title of the headline. [edit] Even the title of the original paper is "Moderate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes and cognitive decline" which suggest causation. why should the headline be weaker than the title of the paper itself?
        • epistasis 9y ago
          In this setting, "risk factor" means "associated." It does not mean causes, and it really misinforms the public to jump to that. Even if the authors strongly suggest causation, but stop short, the most that should go in the headline is "Study strong suggests that moderate drinking causes.." Jumping to conclusions in the popular press hurts the reputation of scientists. Journalists and editors have been doing this for years, especially on topics that sell papers, specifically what to eat and what to not eat, how to gain or lose weight, or how to live longer.
  • dang 9y ago
    Ok, we replaced 'causes' with 'associated with' above.
• startupdiscuss 9y ago
  But they define "moderate" as 2 drinks/day for a man. That is 14 drinks a week which puts you in the second highest decile for Americans! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think...
  • TylerE 9y ago
    A "drink" is not in line with common vernacular though. What most people would call a "drink" is usually about 1.5 or more drinks by the medical standard. A decent sized glass of red wine can easily be 3 drinks.
    • jogjayr 9y ago
      The article says a 12 oz beer (slightly larger than the standard 330ml beer) is 1 drink for the purposes of the study.
      • fumar 9y ago
        What about alcohol content
        • opportune 9y ago
          It's actually 0.6 ounces of alcohol irrespective of alcohol content. Therefore 12 oz 5% beer = 1.5 oz 40% liquor = 5 oz 12% wine = 1 unit
      • haswell 9y ago
        I couldn't get beyond the paywall, but did they mention which sort of beer? Standard Bud/Miller products? Using a 12 oz beer as a starting point doesn't mean much in a craft beer world with most "good" beers ranging from 5-8% ABV. Edit: not really understanding the downvotes? Alcohol content is extremely important in understanding the meaning of a "drink". Not trying to be pedantic, but now more than ever, "a beer" is not really a useful descriptor. I bring this up because I personally enjoy a beer at the end of a long day. I tend to drink IPAs, and those IPAs tend to range from 6-8% ABV. Trying to put this article in the context of my personal habits.
• hamstercat 9y ago
  I'd be interested to know what 3 times more mean. If your chance of brain damage is 0.5% normally and jumps to 1.5% with moderate drinking, that isn't too bad. If it jumps to 10% to 30% that's another story.
  • magicalist 9y ago
    Yeah, I hate when they do leave that out. If I'm reading Table 3 in the study correctly, when accounting for a bunch of possible variables (sex, age, exercise, etc), for every 10 units of alcohol consumed per week over 30 years you'd expect to see .19% decrease in hippocampal volume (0.08% to 0.30% decrease at 95% CI)
    • nurettin 9y ago
      Now all that remains is to figure out how much reduction in hippocampal volume turns you into donald duck.
• water42 9y ago
  this was posted earlier in the month and most of the top level comments have already been made https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508201
• fludlight 9y ago
  Why not link to the actual study? http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353 http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353
  • gnat 9y ago
    550 civil servants followed over 30 years. > After adjustment for numerous potential confounders, alcohol use was associated with reduced right hippocampal volume in a dose dependent manner; even moderate drinkers (classified as up to 21 units a week for men at the time of the study) were three times more likely to have hippocampal atrophy than abstainers, and very light drinking (1-6 units a week) conferred no protection relative to abstinence. Higher alcohol consumption was also associated with reduced white matter integrity and faster decline in lexical fluency, a test of “executive function.”
    • B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
      > 550 civil servants Bureaucracy causes brain damage. Those with heavier damage took refuge in alcohol.
      • jMyles 9y ago
        I'm not sure if you are trying to be funny - if so, you've succeeded. However, this also reads to me like a very plausible explanation. I like the idea of specifically studying this component further.
        • loeg 9y ago
          It's amusing, and also, supported by no less evidence than the causality in the headline.
          • peternel 9y ago
            Yes, along with an unlimited number of variants. e.g. Stress due to civil service job arises from specific problems. Alcohol is used as a form of distraction and prevents those problems from being solved, resulting in stress-damage to the hippocampal areas.
• scottLobster 9y ago
  So just for reference, 14 units of alcohol (the low-end correlated to atrophy) is approximately: 7-9 (US) shots of hard alcohol (assumed 37.5% ABV) 7 pints of Lager (assumed 4% ABV) 9.3 125 ml glasses of average strength wine (assumed 12% ABV) Looks like my 2-5 bottles of beer a week habit is fine. :) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/new-alcohol-guidelines-how-many-drinks-is-14-units-a6802091.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...
  • nothrabannosir 9y ago
    A single shot of hard liquor is explicitly 1 unit. 1 standard serving is 25ml, *40% (standard for whiskey and vodka ) = 10ml = 1 unit. So 14 units is 14 shots. This is not a coincidence. It's why they call it a "unit", and why the standard "single shot size" is 25ml. (The other measurements are fine) Edit: caveat: I'm European. This may be different in the us!
    • YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 9y ago
      Bear in mind that these things vary by country (i.e. what is a single unit and what is a standard serving). Around here a standard shot of spirits is a single unit, give or take at least, but it is 4 cL in size.
      • Symbiote 9y ago
        The UK even has two choices: either 25mL or 35mL. The bar must have a sign saying which measure they use, it's usually fairly clear once you know where to look.
    • DanBC 9y ago
      The US has a "standard drink", but it's different to a UK unit. A US standard drink is 14 gm of pure alcohol. A UK unit is (as you say) 10 ml or pure alcohol, which is roughly 8 gm. (I think).
    • loeg 9y ago
      This is also true (or very similar) in the US. 14 units is certainly closer to 14 shots than 7. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/what-standard-drink https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co... > In the United States, one "standard" drink contains roughly 14 grams of pure alcohol, which is found in: > * 12 ounces of regular beer, which is usually about 5% alcohol > * 5 ounces of wine, which is typically about 12% alcohol > * 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits (= 1 US shot), which is about 40% alcohol Edit: although, 25mL is far less than 1.5oz. Different units, then.
• protonfish 9y ago
  My concern about this study is that it used a large number of different measures: multiple structural brain measures and cognitive tests, then swept the negative ones under the rug and reported only positive correlations. This is like the XKCD jelly bean test https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ There is no reason to accept these types of results without replication.
• devoply 9y ago
  Well why wouldn't it. Alcohol is not a health food. It crosses the blood brain barrier and is toxic to cells. So yeah put toxic stuff up there, there will be some consequence.
  • protonfish 9y ago
    The mistake you are making is about dosage. All substances are toxic or harmless depending on the amount.
    • jamroom 9y ago
      You're right of course, but the "correct" amount of alcohol is still going to be much more toxic than most other foods that enter your body. Alcohol is a poison.
      • QuantumGravy 9y ago
        > Alcohol is a poison. A meaningless blanket statement. Methanol is a poison, far worse than ethanol, yet you've likely consumed it in small quantities from what you would think of as non-alcoholic sources. If there's no safe level alcohol consumption, you'd best stick to consuming your fruit unripened or avoiding them entirely. Again, relative toxicity is meaningless without also taking dose into account. You could easily say the "correct" amount of oxygen is toxic, much more so than nitrogen even at sea level, and not be technically wrong. Change up the pressure and mixture and you might find the nitrogen causing more immediate (though not toxic) danger.
        • mamon 9y ago
          Now, how would you define "safe level alcohol consumption"? Are you satisfied with just still being alive the next day after you had a drink? Or do you want to avoid long term negative effects like cirrhosis, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment? For me the "poison" is a substance that when ingested has a significant detrimental effect on one's health. Until recently there was a myth that moderate consumption is harmless, or even beneficial. The research like this show that even small dosages have negative effects. Moderate drinking might not kill you immediately, but still it is healthier choice to avoid alcohol completely.
• richieb 9y ago
  As a comedian once said "They say that alcohol kill brain cells. Yeah, but only the weak ones!"
• mothers 9y ago
  would you give a 5 year old a beer? no? exactly. everyone knows drinking is bad for you. they do it anyway, because "reasons" [1] anyone who disagrees is just being irrational. [1] which may include partying and hooking up, as well as removing any awkwardness they have.
  • coldtea 9y ago
    >everyone knows drinking is bad for you Citations (plural) needed. Without meta-studies and peer responses in subsequent papers and studies, this is just using a single article for confirmation bias. In the actual scientific world, studies have been mixed since forever on the subject, with moderate wine drinking for example having shown in many studies favourable results for cardiovascular health and other aspects. Also many places with the most long-lived people on earth have big wine drinking populations (e.g. Icaria). >they do it anyway, because "reasons" They do it anyway because life is not just about avoiding everything "bad for you" or dangerous, but also about doing whatever one likes and having fun, life expectancy be damned -- from mountain climbing to drinking and anything else. >anyone who disagrees is just being irrational. Anyone who disagrees even for casual drinking is probably too afraid of dying -- but they are gonna die the same as everybody else anyway, and often having lived shorter lives than many of their drinking friends.
    • mothers 9y ago
      > In the actual scientific world, studies have been mixed since forever on the subject, with moderate wine drinking for example having shown in many studies favourable results for cardiovascular health and other aspects. Also many places with the most long-lived people on earth have big wine drinking populations (e.g. Icaria). everything here is irrelevant. drinking has no benefits compared to water. period. again, would you give a little kid a beer for the purported "benefits"? No. Because you know it's not better than the alternative. also, there's no proof alcohol is the reason. perhaps it's the social ties that alcohol can help form. regardless, alcohol has little (if any) health benefit, compared to drinking good 'ol water. you claim drinking is good, OK, bring the proof. I claim it's bad. easy to prove: drunkenness, brain toxicity, decision inhibition, to start. not to mention the ability to kill you much easier than water from consistent consumption. > Anyone who disagrees even for casual drinking is probably too afraid of dying -- but they are gonna die the same as everybody else anyway, and often having lived shorter lives than many of their drinking friends. don't b silly. your rationalization of bad behavior is amusing. reminds me of my homeless friend who does cocaine. there are also people who don't drink who live longer than people who do. the point isn't longevity. the point is -- is alcohol what does it? the answer is a resounding "no." everything you're saying here was said about tobacco.
• carbocation 9y ago
  A Mendelian randomization study that I find convincing suggests that there is no obvious safe level of alcohol intake from a cardiovascular standpoint. This observational study linked by tuxguy points in the same direction, and it seems ripe for follow-up with genetic work that could support (or help refute) the likely direction of causality.
  • sjg007 9y ago
    I've heard the opposite, basically life long drunks have clear arteries.
  • delazeur 9y ago
    If you are going to talk about a specific study, please link to it.
    • carbocation 9y ago
      Sorry, got caught up in rounds. The study is here: http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4164 http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4164
• accountyaccount 9y ago
  sure, that's the point
• accountyaccount 9y ago
  sure, that's the point
• TimMurnaghan 9y ago
  Seriously, stop linking to sources that block adblockers. As far as I'm concerned they've taken themselves off the web.
  • rebeccaskinner 9y ago
    PrivacyBadger generally blocks the ad-block blocking scripts (for now)
  • greggyb 9y ago
    Would you mind letting us know your favorite and least favorite foods as well, please? I'd hate to consume anything you don't like.
  • 0xffff2 9y ago
    Site loads fine for me using uBlock Origin...
  • Bakary 9y ago
    To play devil's advocate, as far as they are themselves concerned, you have taken yourself off the web as a source of revenue they are willing to cater to. What possible incentive could they have to comply with those demands?
    • Chris2048 9y ago
      Unless they are posting themselves here, there is no issue of compliance.
  • pcthrowaway 9y ago
    This one works fine if you disable javascript. In chrome, you can open dev tools, click the kebab at the top right of the toolbox, click 'Settings', then check 'disable javascript' under 'debugging' and refresh the page with the toolbox open. Chrome used to make this easier, but IMO this is one of several ways their dev tools have changed for the worse.
• coldtea 9y ago
  >Even moderate drinking causes atrophy in brain area related to memory, learning Well, that's for the better. Seeing that I drink to forget.
• codyb 9y ago
  Alcohol is getting a pretty bad rap to me the more I read about it. After reading this I was curious about ways to _increase_ hippocampal function. According to [0] it seems like exercise can increase hippocampal function. Another link I can't find again since I found it on my phone and am now on my laptop indicated things like learning languages, and an omega 3 rich diet can also help. This is good news for me since NYC is very much a drinkers town and I enjoy partaking, but am also learning Italian, exercising more, and frequently eat with omega 3s in mind. Here's to hoping they cancel out! [0] - https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7344/full/nature09817.html https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7344/full/nature...
  • surement 9y ago
    > Here's to hoping they cancel out! It's funny but it's probably fairly accurate. Two 12oz 5% beers per day is not exactly extreme, and evidently many people drink 'this much' without terrible consequences. Articles like this cater mostly to people who are obsessed with articles like this.
    • loeber 9y ago
      > evidently many people drink 'this much' without terrible consequences This assumption reflects an underlying statistical bias: if most people you know exhibit this behavior, then that's what you see as normal. It may very well be the case that the consequences are actually terrible -- they're just hard for you to perceive because they're normalized by everyone exhibiting them.
      • Bakary 9y ago
        There's an allegorical story by Bostrom (the author of Superintelligence) which explores this concept as it relates to our short lifespans. http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
      • surement 9y ago
        Then the people who don't drink would be outrageously more successful.
• SubiculumCode 9y ago
  In my phd work I was heavily involved in hippocampal segmentation, and I can say with confidence that FSL FIRST is not a state-of-the-art segmentation method. It belongs to an earlier generation of segmentation methods with poorer reliability, which have contributed to a lot of contradictory results in my field of hippocampal development. I would not use it in my research. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273940329_Assessing_Hippocampal_Development_in_Early_Childhood_Evidence_from_a_New_Application_of_the_Automatic_Segmentation_Adapter_Tool https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273940329_Assessing... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260915135_Volume_of_Hippocampal_Subfields_and_Episodic_Memory_in_Childhood_and_Adolescence https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260915135_Volume_of... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274252280_Developmental_Change_in_Relational_Binding_and_Hippocampal_Structure https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274252280_Developme... [edit] I had meant to point a link to my chapter on hippocampal development. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314194708_Hippocampal_Development_Structure_Function_and_Implications https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314194708_Hippocamp...
  • marmaduke 9y ago
    What software would you suggest for subcortical reconstruction then? What do you think of FreeSurfer v6's?
    • SubiculumCode 9y ago
      I have some experience with FreeSurfer. As a whole, FreeSurfer is pretty terrible at hippocampal/subcortical segmentation, but very good at cortical surface reconstruction. One of the links I posted in grandparent presents a validation experiment on Hongzhi Wang's method employing Adaboost learning to vastly improve FreeSurfer segmentations. It is impressive and useful for researchers used to FreeSurfer. However, the state of the art for image segmentation is dominated by a class of methods called multi-atlas segmentation, which I am using for a large longitudinal study I am currently writing up. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361841515000997 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361841515... for a review.
• hellofunk 9y ago
  I guess you need to decide what is important to you. For example, a few years ago, this was published [0]: > One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink tend to die sooner than those who do http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200...
  • prodmerc 9y ago
    Well, that makes sense. It reduces stress for a while and postpones suicides.
    • DanBC 9y ago
      Alcohol drastically increases suicide rates and self harm rates. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jayne_Cooper/publication/8053710_Suicide_After_Deliberate_Self-Harm_A_4-Year_Cohort_Study/links/09e415087b907a2b13000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jayne_Cooper/publicatio... > Conclusions: The results highlight the importance in a suicide prevention strategy of early intervention after an episode of self-harm. Treatment should include attention to physical illness, alcohol problems, and living circumstances. Self-harm appears to confer a particularly high risk of suicide in female patients. http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuicideprevention/nci/reports/2016-report.pdf http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centrefor... > 11. Over half the patients who died by suicide had a history of alcohol or drug misuse. There were national differences, with alcohol misuse a more common antecedent of suicide in Scotland and Northern Ireland, drug misuse more common in Scotland. However, a much smaller group was in contact with specialist substance misuse services
      • delazeur 9y ago
        Your claim would be supported by evidence that the population of drinkers has higher suicide rates than the population of non-drinkers, which is notably different than evidence that people who commit suicide are likely to be drinkers.
      • 9y ago
• spdionis 9y ago
  Yeah but what's the point of having a good memory if you can't have a drink?
  • asciimo 9y ago
    I used to know the answer to this...
• B1narySunset 9y ago
  What about binge drinking on the weekend?
• Cyph0n 9y ago
  I'm always interested to see how people react to a news article or study that criticizes alcohol. I have noticed over time that alcohol consumption is usually a taboo subject to discuss for some reason, and almost everyone I talk to immediately gets on the defensive when I say that I don't drink and never will. Can anyone shed some light on why exactly people don't like it when someone doesn't drink, especially when it's for health reasons? Anyways, I'm not surprised that most of the comments here are either outright defensive or are just proposing ways to undermine the content of the study. Reading through the comments, arguments include: the one size fits all "correlation is not causation", ad hominem attacks on WaPo itself, half-jokingly accusing the article author of drinking, and arguing the semantics of what constitutes a "drink".
  • eduren 9y ago
    > almost everyone I talk to immediately gets on the defensive when I say that I don't drink and never will Choosing not to drink is your choice to make. But if _almost everyone_ you talk to about it goes into defensive mode, that sounds really weird. Are you around people that don't react normally to social situations? "No thanks, I don't drink" is a common thing to hear for anybody.
    • vladus2000 9y ago
      Depending upon tone, some people may view it as a "I am holier than thou" type comment. I cannot drink for legit medical reasons and when I tell people that the common reaction is "have a drink anyway" but I haven't had anyone be defensive about it.
    • sundvor 9y ago
      "No thanks, I'm driving". Works for me.
  • dukoid 9y ago
    Alcohol itself is not a taboo subject. People like to brag about what kind of stupid things they did when drinking. After that, not drinking is kind of like saying "I don't do that kind of stupid things".
• kmm 9y ago
  I wonder if there's a difference between acute and chronic alcohol consumption of the same amount. Drinking 14 units in one event every 2 weeks amortizes to one unit per day, but would it have the same effect?
  • DanBC 9y ago
    There are a range of harms associated with alcohol, and binge drinking increases your risk of some of them. So, even if it's fine your your brain (and I'm not sure it would be) it's increasing your risk for other damage.
• ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  As a stats man, before I read the article I said to myself: "bet it's from a survey". With that kind of methodology, I imagine the "moderate" drinkers are going to contain the group of people who said they (frequently) drink, but not that much. I'd be willing to bet there will be a relationship between reporting that you drink frequently and the negative effects of alcohol that will outweigh the attempt to self report how much you drink (because the latter won't be reported accurately, but people who don't drink will tend to more accurately report and select themselves out into another category. Not only is it easier to self report whether you are a non drinker/drinker than it is to report you are a moderate/heavy drinker, I imagine there's also another confounding effect coming through given that there generally has to be something exceptional about you to be a non-drinker in our societies. Self-disclosure: practically a non-drinker, nothing ideologically against it. Might have a beer every two months socially with food. Thoughts? Especially from anyone reading the actual study?
  • tpeo 9y ago
    As a drinker, I think there's the issue of how those 14 drinks are distributed over the week. IMO 2 drinks a day is pretty doable, but 14 drinks every Friday night over 30 years sounds like a terrible idea.
  • mattmanser 9y ago
    I believe it's the same study that was on here a few weeks ago, it's from brain scans + tests. 550 people over 30 years, same number, same years. Self-reported consumption. Actual study: http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353 http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353 The study is pretty detailed, but there are some oddities in the results, higher IQs drank more on average and lost more, people who drank heavily lost less than those who drank moderately. This was based in the UK, in one community, middle-class, civil servants, predominantly men, average age 43 at start of study (and I would guess almost all white, though they don't say it). Unsafe drinkers differed from safe drinkers by having a higher premorbid IQ, a higher percentage of men and smokers, and higher Framingham risk scores Some of the interesting results: Higher alcohol consumption over the study predicted faster decline on lexical fluency but not semantic fluency or word recall. People drinking has a % greater reduction from their baseline in lexical fluency per year: 7-<14 units 0.5% (14% over 30 years) 14-<21 units 0.8% (17% over 30 years) >21 units 0.6% per year (16% over 30 years) !! These figures are odd and seemingly don't add up. Is it just bad rounding? Are their graphs based on these wrong figures? !! Their conclusion doesn't highlight that it doesn't seem to matter how much you drink in terms of lexical fluency, it's that you drink at all? I don't really understand the section titled "Grey matter". 3.4 odds in lighter drinkers, 5.8 odds in heavier drinkers? They don't really explain what that means. Edit: having now listened to the audio it seems there was some technical problem with the white matter measurement, but they say they saw a decline. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508201
• nickledave 9y ago
  Haven't seen anyone else comment on this specific statement from the abstract: "No association was found with cross sectional cognitive performance or longitudinal changes in semantic fluency or word recall." Based on other people's comments, seems like the main finding here is that maybe the hippocampus shrinks as we get older and maybe there's an effect on lexical fluency. We already know that, even in "healthy" subjects, the brain shrinks due to aging, and I think no-one can say yet how much atrophy can take place before it impacts memory or learning.
• tlholaday 9y ago
  Meanwhile, President Trump is a lifelong teetotaler.
  • maga 9y ago
    Me too, so is Putin and so was Rommel... I felt somewhat uncomfortable sharing this with those two guys, but I feel the orange guy far outdid everyone in giving us a bad rep. Moreover, my nom de plume has been "Maga" for ages and has nothing to do with 'murica, but now it's a joke in liberal circles.
• mothers 9y ago
  funny how this is downvoted. guarantee you all of the downvoters are drinkers who don't want to be told they're doing the wrong thing.
  • dang 9y ago
    Please don't comment like this here. It breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14649917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14649917 and marked it off-topic.
• clubm8 9y ago
  What if I drink fourteen drinks once every 4 to 6 months?
• nashashmi 9y ago
  Reminds me of what a nurse once said: wet brain syndrome, or being drink even when you are sober.
• KekDemaga 9y ago
  My personal rule still stands "All substances that impair in the short term, when used daily, impair in the long term."
  • amelius 9y ago
    Does it also hold for alcohol and impaired libido? That would probably be a good start for a campaign against alcohol.
    • KekDemaga 9y ago
      Alcohol abuse in men can lead to testicular atrophy, so I'd say yes.
• zelos 9y ago
  Did they consider that it might not be the alcohol itself, but correlation with behaviour? People who come home from work and have a drink or two are much less likely to do something that keeps their brain active.