Alcohol use disorder largest risk factor for dementia(sciencedaily.com) |
Alcohol use disorder largest risk factor for dementia(sciencedaily.com) |
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.
- 1.5 L of beer (at 5% ABV)
- 0.5 L of wine (at 14% ABV)
> 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.
Citation needed
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/
Source: http://www.rethinkyourdrinking.ca/what-is-a-standard-drink/
That is interesting:
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."
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
Then again, that is a lot of alcohol. Bound to have some negative effect.
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.
So, 1 standard drink = 1 bottle of beer = 1 reasonable glass of wine = 2 shots of liquor.