Those who consume even a few alcoholic drinks a week have smaller brains, research finds

Those who consume even a few alcoholic drinks a week have smaller brains, research finds

New research has found a correlation between even modest levels of alcohol consumption and reduced brain size.

Led by the University of Pennsylvania, the study of more than 36,000 adults associated reduced grey and white matter in the brain to drinking even a few beers or glasses of wine a week.

The research shows for 50-year-olds, going from one alcohol unit or about half a beer a day to two units, such as a pint of beer or glass of wine, was the equivalent of aging two years.


https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/those...-have-smaller-brains-research-finds-1.5807612

The good news is that if you drink enough you will lack the intelligence to understand the implications of the study

 

no one should be drinking 4 drinks per day, that is a lot

I would call once or twice a month having a couple drinks moderate...

that said, alcohol does dehydrate the body, so may have played a temporary role in the study

also this was based on questionnaires, not a before and after scan sounds like, could be that people with small brains just drink more

 

Intelligence and brain size are not necessarily connected. If it was, men would be smarter.

 

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/one-alcoholic-drink-day-linked-reduced-brain-size

 

Drinking makes you stupid. What a shock!

 

LOL!

Plus, are they really sure that reduced brain size wasn't the cause of the drinking, rather than the effect?

 

Classic case of correlation does not necessarily imply causation. How does the study know people with slightly smaller brains are not more likely to drink more beer in the first place?

 

The problem with the social sciences is that imposing the same level of controls that are possible in the hard sciences is usually unethical in the social sciences.

One has to take care in how social science studies are designed and carried out.

Of course, that is true in the hard sciences, too, but it is especially true in studying humans.

 

50 beers a day for weeks can be devastating

 

Over my lifetime nearly everything we eat, drink or breath has been considered unhealthy. Yet the species endures.

 

If those researches have been run by researchers who drink alcohol ... how could we trust the results?