Association of low to moderate alcohol drinking with better cognitive function | Hacker News Reader

Association of low to moderate alcohol drinking with better cognitive function

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26 pointshirundo37 comments

Not sure about this exact study, but studies like this usually ignore confounding factors that cause people to abstain. The headline leads people to think that they should drink a bit to achieve the result, but that’s usually never the case.

For example there were a bunch of studies about how sleeping 10 hours per night has lower mortality rate than sleeping 12+ hours (oh no - are you sleeping too much?!?), but upon further review they realized that people who are really sick or alcoholics are more likely to sleep 12+ hours per night.

In this case, wouldn’t be surprised if there are reasons people fit into the zero drink category (health issues) that are associated with cognitive decline.

Many studies like this don't exclude abstaining alcoholics that _used_ to be heavy drinkers, so you'll get strange results like "people drinking no alcohol are more likely to get liver cancer than moderate drinkers".

The study abstract compares moderate drinkers to a group they refer to as "never drinkers", so I guess they avoided that "all non-drinkers are former alcoholics" trap.

That's quite the dangerous trade-off. Doubt that it's worth it:

"Countless scientific studies have espoused the idea that a glass of red wine a day can be good for the heart, but a new, sweeping global study published in The Lancet on Friday rejects the notion that any drinking can be healthy.

No amount of alcohol is safe, according to The Global Burden of Diseases study, which analyzed levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016."

[Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcoho...]

Isn't that "not known to be safe" rather than "known to not be safe"?

I think the health issues caused by alcohol are generally underrepresented because it’s difficult to directly correlate the use of alcohol with something like hypertension, GERD, heart disease, diabetes, etc.

Another problem is that often serious signs of alcoholism, like blacking out or vomiting, are considered a normal part of party life and are often portrayed in the media as funny but not necessarily as harmful. Alcohol is not good for your health, no matter the quantity, and the risk of alcoholism makes it in my opinion completely not worth it, especially since I value my health and would like to stay sharp as long as humanly possible.

Probably the "healthy" part of red wine is resveratrol, but in this case you can just have resveratrol in red grape (whole or its juice) or even in supplements.

Grapes (and especially grape juice!) are probably not much better. They wouldn’t have the carcinogenic alcohol, but they have enormous amounts of sugar, which causes its own large set of health problems.

If you avoid other sugars in your diet, in particular added sugars like the ones you can find in pastries, syrups, etc., I'd say that by consuming a moderate amount of fruits every day you're safe.

Grape or grape juice contain also fibers, that regulate many effects of sugars.

But if you really want to play safe, at the cost of more energy-intensive processing to produce it, you can go for resveratrol supplements in capsules.

Fructose from fruits is not considered bad unless you have a source

I think that the precise reason is that when it comes from fruits fructose is always accompanied by fibers, even in juices.

Purified fructose is probably not very good.

Yes, no amount of living life (or consuming and doing many things that make parts of it truly enjoyable) is safe for the raw metric of living as long as possible either, but that's why a certain type of trade-off exists between small to moderate but pleasurable risks and living in a way that's worth the name. This kind of puritanism about all possible risks easily slides into the cheerlessly obsessive.

Correlation is not causation. For example, having a healthy social life may promote both alcohol consumption and cognitive function.

You can’t have causation without correlation.

Not saying that’s that case here, but people like to casually throw around “correlation is not causation” as if pointing out the logical fallacy is itself a sufficient rebuttal.

I didn't really mean it as a "rebuttal", as the paper is careful about not claiming any causal link.

I meant it as a warning to the reader to be careful about drawing conclusions like that. To establish causation you'd need a study where alcohol consumption of the subjects is controlled by the experimenters. That would eliminate the effect of confounding factors that influence both alcohol consumption and cognitive function.

Or the study is studying something else: self control i.e. those who can take alcohol without becoming addicted.

Additionally, if we're to take the view that stressed mammals seek out mind altering substances, then this can be said to be a study of well-being.

when you grow older alcohol switches from being pleasant to being perceived as a poisoning. Two beers and I feel ill, like something is wrong with me and I cannot drink more.

I have anecdata too: the most enthusiastic drinkers I know are in their 40s and 50s.

When you, in the specific sense, grow older, maybe, but not when you, in the generic sense, do.

I know plenty of older people for whom alcohol in general, and beer specifically, remain enjoyable.

I’m sure there is truth in that. I also find that life responsibilities may also account for some of that. At 21 I could have a few drinks at night and then just be sluggish the next day. Now between kids and career those downkey recovery days are a lot harder to absorb!

Alcoholism is a complicated disease, it heavily depends on a person's predispositions which are both genetic and psychological. A lot of times alcoholics don't even realize they're alcoholics, they can often maintain a job and relationships meanwhile abusing alcohol in order to deal with problems or in other ways. The disease can also be slow to progress, often people can hold things together in their life for years before things start imploding on them.

My pet theory is alcohol helps us build and maintain relationships. And whilst even a little alcohol harms us, the physiological benefits of having a strong social group out weigh that harm.

Are you sure you’re building anything foundational if you need to be drinking for it to occur?

Yep, try it some time. Believe it or not, reducing inhibitions helps build close friendships by making is easier for people to get to know one another. Who could've guessed?!?

It’s simply unbelievable!

I've read other studies that suggest as you go higher up the IQ ladder, people are more likely to partake in drug/alcohol use. I'd be willing to bet they've stumbled upon the same phenomenon here but they've got the causation backwards.

There's also a large study showing that binge drinking in early pregnancy is beneficial for the child's IQ. But the only statistically significant result was if it was done in the first 2 gestational weeks which turns out to mean "before fertilization".

However, there are so many confounding variables it's not funny. One interesting thing they controlled for was the mother's binge drinking habits because binge drinking mothers tend to have higher IQ than non-binge-drinking mothers.

I’m just waiting to read “This research was funded in part by the Molson Coors Brewing Company”.

Ask HN: Should I start drinking regularly?

It was funded by the Friends of a Mediterranean Diet Society ;)

Make a proper dinner every day, with actual ingredients, eat it in peace, with a glass of wine. It'll do you good, and leave separating the effect of the wine from the effect of the other mediterranean staples to the pedants.

https://www.amazon.com/fnord/dp/0091925320 for example.

The scientific research I read doesn't agree with that:

No amount of alcohol is safe, according to The Global Burden of Diseases study, which analyzed levels of alcohol use and its health effects in 195 countries from 1990 to 2016.

While the study's authors say that moderate drinking may safeguard people against heart disease, they found that the potential to develop cancer and other diseases offsets these potential benefits, as do other risks of harm. The report urges governments to revise health guidelines to suggest lower levels of consumption."

[Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641618937/no-amount-of-alcoho...]

I've seen such studies too, and I'm sure that with sufficient discipline, you could manage something like a mediterranean diet (rich in pasta dishes, fruit, vegetables, low but not zero on meat) but without wine, without pancetta, without mozzarella, etc. But I don't think that's what mostly happens. The friends I've had over the years who started focusing on avoidance either failed (by giving up the attempt) or eventually ate mostly prefab food. Without alcohol, to be sure.

Anecdote alert: I'm sure abstaining from alcohol hasn't hurt the acquaintance I saw this weekend, but she doesn't look healthy. She's focused on abstention, and IMNSHO a focus on abstention is not the path to a well-rounded diet.

Neither is a beer can and a bag of peanuts, of course.

It makes sense if you think about it. Alcohol is a potent GABA receptor agonist, and will increase the amount of GABA in your brain. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter.

As soon as GABA wears off, it’s like a clamp being removed from the neurons. In alcoholics this becomes so extreme the neurons die off due to excitotoxicity (caused by upregulation of NMDA receptors).

All that being said, there are better ways to enhance cognition. Like exercise. The conclusion should be “think harder when you’re drunk, as it will boost your baseline cognition” ;-)

The crucial numbers:

> Low to moderate drinking (<8 drinks per week for women and <15 drinks per week for men)

'Drink' doesn't appear to be a standard amount of alcohol; the numbers are from self-reporting, so I suppose it could be a half of shandy, a stein of doppelbock, or anything in between.

There is a standard drink (differs by country, I believe UK even has labels showing the amount of standard drinks contained) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink

This study is from US, so:

“For example, in the United States, a standard drink contains about 14 grams of alcohol“

Not sure if that’s what subjects reported, though. But I guess MDs, PHds and reviewers would have taken it into account.

Does JAMA network handle the journal translations or are they done by the authors?

Obligatory chart:

Ballmer Peak https://xkcd.com/323/

Since alcohol is a suppressants, I think in low doses it calms down some parts of the brain that are normally hyperactive, and lets other parts take over.

I personally code better after a beer/cocktail late at night.... maybe two, but not more. It seems that alcohol helps my brain to concentrate at night only. For some reason never during the day. It kinda ruins my productive day if I have any during the day (during lunch/brunch, for example).

I have that very same effect. I'd like to explore if it's only placebo, but unfortunately you can't really self-study because you already know if you're intoxicating yourself or not...

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