Any amount of alcohol consumption harmful to the brain, finds study

Any amount of alcohol consumption harmful to the brain, finds study(theguardian.com)

45 points by Anilm3 5 years ago | 11 comments

aljungberg 5 years ago |

The news article makes it sound like causation has been determined beyond a doubt but the actual study abstract does not detail why the authors think this. Is it impossible to imagine that more brain “damage” leads to more drinking in some cases? Do people who are developing Alzheimer’s sometimes drink more to feel better?

Also not clear is the selection criteria. Are these people who were going to have an MRI and incidentally were offered a chance to participate in this study? In that case it could have biased the sample - there could be a large group of people drinking alcohol and being just fine but they wouldn’t be seen in this study for the very reason that they are doing fine and weren’t getting MRIs.

Certainly the presented hypothesis could be true but the article would be more convincing if it was more critical of its source material. Correlations are easy, they’re a dime a dozen. Proving causation is the real work.

boomboomsubban 5 years ago | |

>Also not clear is the selection criteria.

It's using the data from the UK Biobank study, see

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

Also, part of their conclusion is "as with any observational study, we can not infer causality from associations." They are aware of what their study shows, it's the Guardian who oversells it.

mc32 5 years ago | |

The title says "any" amount then the subtitle say "moderate" which is more than "any" but less than large.

boomboomsubban 5 years ago | | |

The study's conclusions were both that no safe dose for alcohol was found and that moderate drinking was more harmful than previously recognized.

sdfhbdf 5 years ago |

Is it that the illegal marijuana is safer than the legal alcohol? And the only thing keeping Alcohol in this framework is tradition?

foxyv 5 years ago | |

Personally I am all for full legalization of recreational and medical marijuana. It's always been a way to give power to policing and circumvent the constitution by providing reasonable suspicion and the ability to seize possessions without due process.

But, I have seen some drastic personality changes in friends who start using it habitually. Without the decades of research we have for things like cigarettes and alcohol it's hard to know that it is really safer. Although it is a pretty low bar to clear considering how many people are killed or ruined by them every year.

wtetzner 5 years ago | | |

Yeah, whether or not something is safe/good for you is a different question from whether or not it should be legal.

If we banned everything that's bad for you, then vegetable oil should be illegal.

smackeyacky 5 years ago | |

They have very different effects in different time frames, it's not like you could simply swap in marijuana and swap out alcohol for most people.

professorsnep 5 years ago |

> The study, which is still to be peer-reviewed, suggests...

I'd take this with a grain of salt for now

commandlinefan 5 years ago |

What else might this be true of, though? Could this just as easily be true of, say, sugar consumption or meat consumption?

croutonwagon 5 years ago | |

Probably most things. Processed foods, various forms of radiation etc. American Experience had a pretty cool show last season (S32E2)on Dr. Harvey Wiley, an american chemist that could largely be considered the father of the FDA. The amount of stuff put in food is pretty crazy.

The reality is the body is pretty resilient though. Its pretty amazing the amount of abuse it can withstand and still keep on ticking.