Any level of alcohol consumption increases risk of dementia
ox.ac.uk
ox.ac.uk
I've no doubt scientifically that drinking any alcohol increases my risk of something. But it would be great to see it in proportion to other risk factors. Everything is a risk, but somethings are a much greater risk that I might choose to avoid altogether.
Hyperoptimizing your life without looking at the big picture is nicely explained in The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han.
And yes, there is evidence to show that your pre-frontal cortex surrounding impulse control can be weakened by high sugar and high fat diets. Eating indulgent sugary foods absolutely contributes to you wanting more of them.
Over the course of the study the absolute risk was 2.5%.
While this reinforces the dangers of alcohol consumption the actual increase in risk is significant but small.
Effect size and baseline risk matter a lot, and while the idea that alcohol was pro-health always felt a little suspect, I don't think this kind of risk profile is at all significant enough for people to change their habits for.
I didn't also read too much into this study, but there is a stark difference between old age dementia and younger dementia. My mom contracted dementia symptoms at 58, which is so much more devastating than another family member who started showing symptoms at 97.
But I already don't drink, because it's not a source of joy. If you enjoy it, you do you.
The main aim seems to be to refute previous "U-shaped" and "J-shaped" studies that suggested a moderate amount of drinking was good because there was a dip in the distribution. Going so far as to suggest that moderate drinking must somehow be 'protective'. The explanation for that seems to be that those studies collected _current_ drinking use only, when presumably a history of binge drinking would still be quite relevant. This would artificially inflate the 'non-drinking' category with people who actually did have a history of drinking, while also deflating the moderate category. Apparently to the point that the moderate drinking levels looked even safer than non-drinking - which probably should've been a clue. In other words the data was probably pretty flawed, and garbage-in garbage-out.
As for this study...
"Genetically-predicted drinks per week" - are we serious with this?? Maybe they're claiming that their 'predicted models' align well with the smaller amount of surveyed self-reported data but that's hard to find in the paper.
They seem to bend over backwards to make alcohol causal, even going so far as to suggest that a decline in drinking behavior over the years may just be reverse-caused by the future dementia. And for higher incidence of dementia in non-drinkers - seemingly the opposite of the conclusion - that's explained away by suggesting those people may have just had a hypothetical prior heavy use, therefore the "reverse causation is further supported". Pretty circular...
I'm not sure how much more can be reasonably concluded from this other than health risks probably scale with drug use in some fashion. The data, methodology, and modeling seem far far too hand-wavy to suggest any kind of definitive explanation. The results barely even exclude 'no effect' in a 95% CI.
I would not be surprised for a second if effects like early cognitive decline correlate with decreased drinking habits, but I just don't see how you can conclude any of that from this.
I suppose if we're getting off the apparently very loosely suggested 'moderate drinking is good' myth, that's still progress, but...
While I somewhat understand that those who are heavy drinkers (>40 drinks per week) would have a greater dementia risk, and that current low/no drinkers may have been heavy drinkers in the past so would also increase their risk, how does the 7-14 DPW group having a much lower risk than the “never drinkers” in this study make sense given what they’re trying to say here?
If any amount of alcohol intake increases risk then all the cohorts should carry a higher risk then the never drinker group but it does not.
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
It's fine to drink to have fun or enjoy it, even if unhealthy. It's not fine to drink thinking it's good for your health.
Fairly sure that is mostly debunked, or at least grossly misleading, as the quantity of wine required to see cardiovascular benefit is high enough that any benefit is outweighed by the negative effects of the large quantity of wine required.
The negative effects one could operate on are putting on weight, not sleeping as well at night, bad breath, sleepiness, but not a fear-mongering article in which it is said that any amount of alcohol increases the risk of dementia. I am talking about a glass of wine; if the current regime is a bottle of wine a day, the whole equation changes.
The same applies to abortion laws: not even in my wildest dreams would I compare their effects on abortion rates to the effects on behavior that the results of the study discussed in this thread would cause.
Cue my father-in-law.
Let me rephrase it: I doubt that the results of this study will change the minds of a significant number of people who enjoy drinking a glass of wine every now and then.
Being rich enough to buy luxuries is good for your health.
Alcohol acts as a blood thinner, thus it was healthy for the unhealthy. But it was not, and has never been, healthy for the healthy.
Moderate drinking — defined as one drink per day for healthy women and two drinks per day for healthy men — is widely considered safe. But to date, the health effects of alcohol have never been tested in a long-term, randomized trial.
that sentence was written as skepticism of the health benefits to drinking wine. But if the health effects of alcohol have never been studied long term, I don't see how you can claim health benefits are a myth.
Also, the world has changed so much in the last 5 years. It's not clear to me that radical life extension won't happen in the next 50 years. Best to get on the right side of the escape velocity.
When you have information, you probably wouldn't say "cigarettes in moderation". You'd say "avoid smoking" as much as possible. It looks like alcohol is headed in that direction.
You are welcomed to wait for more data, or to choose to continue to drink (to your chosen level of "in moderation") with or without more data. But the guidelines are probably going to end up being "avoid drinking alcohol".
Second, and this comment highlights it perfectly: The more serious problem is not the wine glass per week, it's that drinkers instantly try to "put things into perspective" regarding their own consumption. There are 0 addicts that tell you their honest consumption amount and thus it will continue to rise until you are at serious health hazards.
If you enjoy tricking your brain into releasing endorphins to feel good take up sports, watch a horror movie or engage in any kind of challenge.
Alcohol is poison and will cripple you.
What lesson can I draw from any of this? Dementia really sucks for the families. It's not so bad for the person who's brain is turning to mush.
Well Alzheimer’s was torture for my father every single day before he passed. My grandmother had it too and all throughout the beginning he knew what was coming and how difficult it was going to be for both him and all of us. Even through to the end during the fleeting moments of almost clarity, he agonized over “not being able to think like I used to”
If you could ask someone who has it, I seriously doubt their answer would be “it’s not so bad”.
And lots of old people having hanky panky.
One of the few things they have left to live for, a lot of times. They're not going to be out hiking the Appalachian Trail.