Alcohol use disorder largest risk factor for dementia | Hacker News Reader

Alcohol use disorder largest risk factor for dementia

sciencedaily.com

80 pointstomq47 comments

I've been reading Why We Sleep, a really good and important book about sleep from a noted sleep research and professor of neuroscience Matthew Walker. Some of this intuitively makes sense based on his research.

Alcohol interfers with sleep, specifically the ability to remember information and to form new memories by harming and reducing REM sleep. This effect lasts for stuff you learned days earlier (read a book on Monday, get drunk on Wednesday night and you'll remember less than you would have otherwise). Alcohol and sleep don't mix. He recommends you drink earlier in the day (the closer to bed time the worse) and to not consume too much.

Based on this book, I largely no longer drink during the week after work (he also recommends not drinking caffeine much past noon). I've changed my habits, and am sleeping better.

Better sleep will make your mind sharper. It's not just the amount of sleep you are getting, however. Quality is really important. Alcohol interferes with our ability to sleep, specifically, REM sleep, and if you allow decades of daily interference with such a critical life system, I could see it leading to cognitive decline. Even if you don't get dementia, drinking alcohol too late in the day will cause cognitive issues.

Bavarians with their Weißbier (wheat beer) for breakfast were right all along.

Walker literally says the best time to drink is at breakfast (for the mind at least).

Well I don't drink to remember...

This is specifically for "heavy drinking". In case folks are wondering how that's defined (per the study, computed based on volume of 60 g of ethanol), it's:

- 1.5 L of beer (at 5% ABV)

- 0.5 L of wine (at 14% ABV)

per day. Every day.

Not much for chronic alcohol abusers. Especially in countries where people produce their own wine and spirits. Every two-three hours one shot or glass of wine to take the edge off, calm the nerves. The person doesn't even look like an alcoholic, no tremors, just lowered inhibitions and inappropriate behavior. Come age 60 and they are at risk of early onset dementia. The ethanol dissolved the gray matter. Atrophy and enlarged ventricles clearly visible on brain scans.

It's hard to believe someone with that habit lives long enough to get dementia.

People get dementia in their 50ies and 60ies, sometimes earlier. It's not the most common, but it happens. Also, the brain begins to degrade years before symptoms are noticed, usually subtle changes in behavior.

Good grief!

And 184 mL (about 6.5 shots total, 1.5 fl oz each) of hard liquor (80% ABV).

For reference that's 2/3 of a standard bottle of wine, or a little more if you drink white wine. And that would be a boot of german beer, or 3 1/3 pints of pale ale or lager.

study (pdf): http://www.thelancet-press.com/embargo/dementiaalcohol.pdf

press release: http://www.camh.ca/en/hospital/about_camh/newsroom/news_rele...

Getting mixed messages here! Also today: http://www.newsweek.com/drinking-alcohol-tied-long-life-new-...

Not really. The study in Newsweek is about moderate drinking, not disordered drinking. Also there are plenty of confounding factors in that study. If you're healthy in your 90s, you're more likely to be at social events where you drink, for example.

*Alcohol abuse is largest risk factor

> Most reviews point to a possible beneficial effect of light-to-moderate drinking on cognitive health... By contrast, heavy drinking seems detrimentally related to dementia risk, whatever the dementia type.

> Most reviews point to a possible beneficial effect of light-to-moderate drinking on cognitive health.

Citation needed

Until five years ago the consensus view was that moderate alcohol consumption lowered all-cause mortality compared to non-drinkers.

Latest meta-analyses say that after controlling for reasons behind non-drinkers (‘former alcoholics’) the effect disappears.

Good starting point is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26997174/

Thank you for sharing this research. As someone who abstains from drinking and is very health-conscious, I've been conflicted about all the research supposedly showing health benefits of moderate drinking. The evidence just seemed too intuitive. This gives me something to explore.

And in five years the consensus might change again. Excessive use of everything is harmful. Use common sense.

You can actually find citations. The real question is much the funding from alcohol companies influenced the direction of their research.

That gives me an idea. A law that enforces investment in both sides of the coin. Budweiser should invest in insurance.

I can find weak citations for cardiovascular health, and citations for neural atrophy. I can’t find the citations you’re claiming are there to find.

Heavy drinking. Given this is France, what is heavy drinking?

It's defined in the article. Around 4-5 standard drinks a day for Men or 3 for Women. Which is quite a bit of drinking.

That's how the WHO defines problematic drinking. That is not the bar the study uses. The study uses the bar of being hospitalized for alcohol use disorder.

Where 1 "Canadian standard drink" is 1 bottle of beer, 1 glass of wine or 1 shot of liquor.

Source: http://www.rethinkyourdrinking.ca/what-is-a-standard-drink/

That shot size is 43ml so 5 shots totals 215ml of 40% spirits. In the UK a single is 25ml so it's equivalent of 8.6 'singles' / 4.3 'doubles'.

Didn't see the unit, sorry.

So, 1 standard drink = 1 bottle of beer = 1 reasonable glass of wine = 2 shots of liquor.

But I can easily see a retired man downing 4-5 beers a day, especially when hanging around a pub or social or country club all day.

Thank you, I went straight to the paper where the definition was a bit more hidden.

That is interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink

I'll drink to that

I am surprised it's not age...

The scientific article states alcohol use disorder, not alcohol use.

The scientific article is about early onset dementia, not all dementia.

The scientific article uses a large sample size, but the entire population is French.

I would rewrite the title "Alcohol use disorder is the largest risk factor for early onset dementia in French population."

I'm not French and I am not close to anyone who is, so there is nothing in here of any possible relevance to me?

While there are a lot of posters here eager to point out the limits to what this study formally investigates, the inclusion of the French dimension underscores my suspicion that finding a reason to regard this study as irrelevant to one's specific circumstances is not the best way of looking at it.

I didn't write the parent comment, but I don't think what they're trying to do is

> finding a reason to regard this study as irrelevant to one's specific circumstances

It's more about being precise about what exactly the study found. There's a real problem with legitimate studies being reported as something sensational, and then when the headline is proven to be false the public loses respect for the scientific process.

> There's a real problem with legitimate studies being reported as something sensational, and then when the headline is proven to be false the public loses respect for the scientific process.

I'm the author of the root comment. This phenomenon is one of my greatest disappointments in the modern internet. More than drm, surveillance, and commercialization. The internet is the best avenue for public education we've seen, but instead it's used to sell high sodium processed food and $15/month entertainment subscriptions. The education (on the internet) has to be watered down to be entertainment, because the entire platform is becoming entertainment.

There might be uncontrolled factors specific to French drinkers. E.g. Government policies (taxes on types of alcohol, licensing laws), cultural difference (like drinking later in the evening, with food, or regularly vs binge drinking) etc. etc.

It's not that those things make this completely irrelevant to you, it's that the blanket statement "Alcohol use largest risk factor for dementia" is not proven by this study, due to the earlier commentor's points.

Thanks, we've added “disorder” in the title to clarify.

I don't like when titles obscure the actual findings. It should be Alcohol abuse largest risk factor for dementia. Its not just drinking alcohol, its drinking alcohol problematically.

Is "problematically" a well-defined term in this study?

The title doesn't seem accurate. The summary says:"Alcohol use disorders are the most important preventable risk factors... "

Furthermore, the article states:"This study looked specifically at the effect of alcohol use disorders, and included people who had been diagnosed with mental and behavioural disorders or chronic diseases that were attributable to chronic harmful use of alcohol."

So while I'm quite convinced that prolonged alcohol abuse has serious consequences, I don't think the claim that it is the single biggest risk factor of dementia across the population is supported by this study, as described by the article linked anyway.

The title should probably be changed. The study was looking at "chronic heavy drinking" and "Alcohol use disorders". Not "alcohol use" in general.

The title is terribly inaccurate. The study specifically mentions chronic heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders as the problem, not alcohol itself.

Shit.

Of course, people who drink that much may have other issues that lead to said dementia, and alcohol use was a (poor) self-medication.

Then again, that is a lot of alcohol. Bound to have some negative effect.

I know schizophrenia can develop into dementia if not treated. Perhaps depression, anxiety and other mental disorders also result in faster brain deterioration. I've also found studies linking calming pills like xanax and valium to earlier dementia.

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