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Eight or more drinks per week linked to brain lesions
- triyambakam 2y agoIt's frustrating that the definition of "drinks" varies and even when defined is not easy to adjust for various types of alcohol. So much easier to measure by units of alcohol. Just multiply ml of drink by percentage of alcohol and divide by 1000.
- 0_____0 2y agoIt is widely standardized as 1 drink = 14g of alcohol, a definition that isn't affected by type of drink.
- dchuk 2y agoWho on earth knows what 14g of alcohol is in terms of visiting a bar?
- ab71e5 2y agoBeer is about 5%, so 14 times 20 = 280ml of beer, pretty standard beer glass size
- dehrmann 2y agoLiquor is around 40% alcohol, and a shot is supposed to be 1.5 oz, so 17g. A bit more than a standard drink, but not far off.
- hug 2y ago> a shot is supposed to be 1.5 oz There is no standard definition of a shot. Serves in the US will vary wildly, as will serves across Europe. In Australia, a shot is 30ml (close enough to 1 oz to make no difference) which is exactly one standard drink or 10g of alcohol, assuming straight spirit.
- dehrmann 2y agoThere's a bar I used to go to that has Whiskey Wednesdays. They're entire whiskey menu was half off. What they don't tell you (unless you ask) is they pour 1 oz shots instead of 1.5.
- PontifexMinimus 2y agoIn Britain the standard glass size is 568 ml, i.e. a pint.
- satvikpendem 2y agoThat's about two drinks, then.
- hug 2y agoHaving not traveled to the UK, is a half pint not also a fairly standard size? Pubs in Melbourne generally serve pints and "pots", aka half-pints.
- PontifexMinimus 2y agoYou can buy beer in halfs, but people more usually buy a pint.
- MathMonkeyMan 2y ago12 oz of 5% alcohol by volume water (let's say beer) has what mass of alcohol? 0.05 * (12 oz * ~30 mL/oz * ~800 mg alcohol / mL) = ~14 grams alcohol
- Gigachad 2y agoIf it’s prepackaged (not from a tap), it’ll say on the packaging how many standard drinks it is.
- quicklime 2y agoWhere I live, and it seems in most places in the world, a standard drink is 10g of alcohol. > The definition of what constitutes a standard drink varies very widely between countries,[2] with what each country defines as the amount of pure alcohol in a standard drink ranging from 8 to 20 grams. > The sample questionnaire form for the World Health Organization's Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) uses 10 g (0.35 oz),[3] and this definition has been adopted by more countries than any other amount. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink
- koolba 2y ago> Where I live, and it seems in most places in the world, a standard drink is 10g of alcohol. That is a weak pour. Not even an ounce of hooch. I definitely would not go back to that bar.
- quicklime 2y agoOne problem with the idea of a “standard drink” is that what people typically get at a bar (eg a pint of beer) is actually a fair bit more than a standard drink. It’s unrelated to a typical pour.
- PontifexMinimus 2y agoNote that a 568 ml pint of beer of 5% strength is by this definition 2 drinks. 4 pints over a week is basically nothing, and if they are saying it causes ill health, I don't believe them. When I was a student I drank 10 times that amount, so did many of my friends, without any apparent ill effects.
- satvikpendem 2y ago> Note that a 568 ml pint of beer of 5% strength is by this definition 2 drinks. Yes it is. I can always tell the difference between drinking a can of it versus a pint, it definitely does feel like twice the effects. > if they are saying it causes ill health, I don't believe them I mean you can believe whatever you want but the scientific consensus is that any amount of alcohol is bad for you [0]. Just because you and your friends didn't have ill effects does not mean that it was actually good or even neutral for you all, and statistically and biologically it's been shown to not be so either. [0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
- anon7725 2y agoThere’s probably no safe limit of driving a car or using a step ladder. Alcohol has been with us since the beginning and will probably be with us until the end. The point of these studies should be to make people aware of the risks and motivate them to make appropriate choices. But part of the understanding of risk should be that there is a floor below which something else will most assuredly kill you. Is that floor 10 drinks per week? 2? Who knows.
- NaOH 2y agoAs a reference for folks, 14g of a liquid that pours like water is one tablespoon.
- anyfoo 2y agoEither way, I struggle to find a likely definition of "drinks" where 8 per week does not seem excessive. Like even if "half a pint of beer" is the definition (unlikely), that means drinking 4 pints of beer per week, throughout a long time? I.e. not just for 2 weeks in a row or so? That does not fit my definition of "social drinking" anymore. And mind you that that's a purposefully underestimating assumption. The actual definition of a drink is likely larger than half a pint of beer.
- hyperadvanced 2y agoI think a bog standard IPA is about 2 “units” of alcohol. I like the old alcoholic “I’ll only have one or two” and it’s a wine glass filled to the brim or a mason jar half full of whiskey
- intrasight 2y agoI've recently had to admit to myself that my standard can of IPA is in fact two beers.
- jeffbee 2y agoWhether 8 standard drinks per week becomes heavy or not would seem to depend on one's own body mass.
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoMost people don’t think that one per day is excessive. 8 is only a bit more than that.
- thot_experiment 2y agoAlways interesting to see different perspectives, visiting my aunt (almost 70yo) it was half a liter of beer with lunch, and another half with dinner as kind of just a normal thing. Maybe not every day but also some days you'll have another after dinner. Nobody thinks twice about that level of consumption, there is zero negative stigma. Even if someone gets a little drunk most evenings it's not thought of as a problem, work meetings are had over beers after lunch. Life expectancy exceeds that of the United States, so personally to have someone say 8 beers a week is excessive is mindboggling to me.
- crummy 2y agoIf I had brain lesions, I'd probably take up heavy drinking, too.
- triyambakam 2y agoWhy be depressed when you can be inebriated?
- EricRiese 2y ago> I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. -Tom Waits
- anonymousiam 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIrtZaPrwSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIrtZaPrwSk
- zimpenfish 2y ago> -Tom Waits -Carlton W Berenda or Steve Allen https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/12/23/free-bottle/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/12/23/free-bottle/
- wut-wut 2y agoWell done!
- thunkle 2y ago> Of those who never drank, 40% had vascular brain lesions. Of the moderate drinkers, 45% had vascular brain lesions. Of the heavy drinkers, 44% had vascular brain lesions. Of the former heavy drinkers, 50% had vascular brain lesions. I mean when you put it that way it doesn't seem so bad.
- throwaway7783 2y agoYeah, it almost reads like "if you have to drink, drink heavy and don't stop drinking" - that seems to be the least harmful category other than not drinking at all!
- doubled112 2y ago> impaired cognitive abilities were observed only in former drinkers. Have to keep drinking or you’ll experience a loss in cognitive abilities.
- ergonaught 2y agoYeah. The 40% seems like the interesting bit.
- bbarn 2y agoYeah, the fact that 40% get them regardless makes the slight increases seem.. statistically irrelevant?
- mikeyouse 2y agoIt turns out we in fact have tests to determine statistical significance - and the fact that this study was peer reviewed and published means the results were indeed statistically significant! > We included 1,781 participants (mean age 74.9 ± 12.5 years, mean education 4.8 ± 4.0 years, 49.6% women, and 64.1% White). Compared with participants who never consumed alcohol, moderate (odds ratio [OR] 1.60, 95% CI 1.19–2.15, p = 0.001), heavy (OR 2.33, 95% CI 1.50–3.63, p < 0.001), and former heavy (OR 1.89, 95% CI 1.41–2.54, p < 0.001) alcohol consumptions were associated with hyaline arteriolosclerosis while only heavy (OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.10–2.30, p = 0.012) and former heavy (OR 1.31, 95% CI 1.02–1.68, p = 0.029) alcohol consumptions were associated with neurofibrillary tangles. Former heavy drinking was associated with a lower brain mass ratio (β −4.45, 95% CI −8.55 to −0.35, p = 0.033) and worse cognitive abilities (β 1.31, 95% CI 0.54–2.09, p < 0.001). The association between impaired cognitive abilities and alcohol consumption was fully mediated by hyaline arteriolosclerosis (β 0.13, 95% CI 0.02–0.22, p = 0.012).
- boomboomsubban 2y agoBrain legions seem to be caused by trauma to the head, along with other things, so this doesn't seem that surprising? Both "most risk averse people drink less" and "most drinkers engage in more risky behavior" are generally accepted ideas.
- bbarn 2y agoOf those who never drank, 40% had vascular brain lesions. Of the moderate drinkers, 45% had vascular brain lesions. Of the heavy drinkers, 44% had vascular brain lesions. Of the former heavy drinkers, 50% had vascular brain lesions. So, I read this as "If you're a heavy drinker, it's better than being moderate or ever stopping" Statistics are fun.
- smt88 2y ago"Former heavy drinkers" is going to include more people who already started having health issues than the group of current heavy drinkers
- kstrauser 2y agoIt also excludes people who died of it. No telling what their rate might be.
- imtringued 2y agoThe average age of death being 75 not only excludes heavy drinkers who didn't make it, but also excludes all the healthy people who made it well into their 80s and 90s.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 2y agoThe old adage always rings true. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The devil is always in the details
- muglug 2y agoOn paper the ones who died as heavy drinkers fare slightly better brain-wise, but they die earlier (according to the study). Quitting heavy drinking may mean you live longer, but with an impaired brain.
- remram 2y agoThose are very small variations. I would look for confounding factors, e.g. income levels, mental health, etc that could easily explain a few percent difference. Looking at the full paper, specific factors were accounted for but the list seems kind of short for such a small statistical result. The paper acknowledge that racial minorities have a higher incidence but the data doesn't seem to contain income information... yeah. Honestly I'm mostly surprised it came out so small.
- bentt 2y agoThis headline is way more sure of itself than the actual data.
- karaterobot 2y agoEngage defensive skepticism mode!
- jrflowers 2y agoI like how “not drinking at all” is linked to brain lesions at nearly the same rate
- zabzonk 2y ago> Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week So if you have about one drink a day you are doomed (and a "heavy" drinker)? Experience tells that this is simply not the case, and is crap promulgated by mad the mad teetotal faction.
- jeromegv 2y agoLooks like you’re in denial. It’s not about what is socially acceptable, it’s about the health impact.
- zabzonk 2y agoIn denial about what? Did I mention social acceptability? I questioned that one drink a day was harmful.
- satvikpendem 2y ago> I questioned that one drink a day was harmful. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
- zabzonk 2y agoYes, yes - there any number of these silly reports. There are probably a similar number claiming that drinking is good for you.
- intrasight 2y agoWhat mostly matters in science is the consensus, and the consensus currently is that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.
- boomboomsubban 2y agoOne drink a day is seven a week. If your family describe you as regularly having more, I doubt you're having eight. More likely you're getting drunk on a regular basis.
- satvikpendem 2y ago"No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health" [0]. Always interesting to see the responses of people to this scientific fact. [0] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
- ViktorRay 2y agoPerhaps the responses are less to the fact and more to the smug moralizing manner in which certain people point this out.
- satvikpendem 2y agoNothing is moralizing about it, it's a neutral fact, but people just don't like it being pointed out to them. By all means, drink if you want, but many people seem to think it confers some health benefit which has been debunked, that's all that this article is talking about.
- intrasight 2y agoThere may have been a time when informed, intelligent people thought that alcohol had health benefits - but that time was many years ago now.
- tbrownaw 2y agoAll of the claims about health benefits that I've seen were about other (families of) chemicals, rather than the ethanol itself.
- Duwensatzaj 2y agoWrong. Latest research says it cuts heart disease risk and increases other risks.
- strictnein 2y agoIt probably gets negative responses because people are tired of seeing it posted any time alcohol is mentioned. It's becoming like people saying they're vegan or they do crossfit any time food or exercise is mentioned. Alcohol isn't good for me, but I simply don't care.
- thefz 2y ago8 total or all in one sitting?