No Benefits of Alcohol Consumption

 

If you think Dr. Fauchi and the CDC scientists are quacks and you don’t believe in science, stop reading this. However, if you want to learn about the most comprehensive and groundbreaking study on brain functioning and alcohol consumption, continue reading.

It has been well established that binge drinking and alcohol abuse result in a plethora of health declines. But what about occasional drinking or moderate daily drinking? Does that have an impact on cognitive functioning and overall health? A team of scientists headed by chief investigator Dr. Remi Daviet at the University of Pennsylvania found that any alcohol consumption resulted in reduced brain volume. In layman’s terms, that means brain shrinkage with even one drink per day. Increased drinking results in increased brain shrinkage (Daviet et al., 2022; Penn Today, 2022), which in old age often results in diminished health outcomes, accidents, accelerated aging, and loss of independence.

On my blog posting of June 30, 2017, I analyzed several research studies about alcohol consumption. As I stated in that posting, I found no scientific evidence of the benefits of alcohol consumption. The most recent study by Daviet et al. (2022) reinforces that stance.

Background: A similar study about drinking and frontal lobe brain shrinkage was conducted twenty years ago in Japan. Frontal lobe atrophy is associated with decreased cerebral blood flow, cognitive functioning, and glucose metabolism (p. 105). Researchers Kubota et al. (2001) recruited adult Japanese participants, 1061 men and 371 women, all “non-alcoholic” subjects [who did not abuse alcohol], classified as abstainers, light drinkers, moderate, and heavy drinkers. Using MRI scans, their frontal lobes were analyzed to determine levels of brain atrophy. While abstainers had the least shrinkage, heavy drinkers had the most significant amount of atrophy. Comparing their frontal lobe scans, Kubota et al. (2001) found that age is the most significant factor contributing to frontal lobe shrinkage, a “physiological phenomenon advancing with age” (p. 105). [In other words, frontal lobes shrink the older we get.] They found no association between light alcohol consumption and frontal lobe shrinkage.

While the Kubota et al. (2001) study followed scholarly protocols, significant limitations were the small number of participants and geographic concentration, which means that findings remain ambiguous or anecdotal. (Now, I am sounding like Dr. Fauchi.) Their findings are subjective and cannot be extrapolated or generalized. In layman’s terms, it means that moderate drinking may or may not be harmful to overall health. Another larger study is required. It is established that brains shrink with age. So how can alcohol consumption be beneficial?

Researchers recently wanted to investigate brains and drinking. The most robust study findings were recently published in Nature Communications journal (Daviet et al., 2022). These researchers wanted to know if alcohol consumption or abstinence impacts the brain. Instead of recruiting participants, the researchers accessed an enormous MRI dataset from the UK Biobank and analyzed 36,678 brain scans from British middle-aged and older adults (Penn Today, 2022). Researchers had medical background, socioeconomic, ancestry, and drinking habits for further analysis. Because the dataset was so massive and so detailed, they found subtleties and patterns that were not previously possible.

They concluded that any amount of alcohol consumption resulted in brain shrinkage. Not just frontal lobe. The shrinkage included the frontal, parietal, and insular cortices, the temporal and cingulate regions, and the brain stem, putamen, and amygdala (Daviet et al., 2022). Further, they found that any alcohol consumption results in brain shrinkage, although going “from one to two or three units a day” results in accelerated aging in addition to reduction in brain volume (Daviet et al., 2022).

Healthy aging includes regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, social connections, and everything in moderation. Aging begins in the womb, not at age fifty as some believe. Take care of your brain and start now, today, no matter how old you are. It’s never too late.  

Readers, my stance remains the same. There is NO significant scientific study documenting the medical benefits of alcohol consumption. AgeDoc

 

References:

Daviet, R., Aydogan, G., Jagannathan, K. et al. (2022). Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank. Nat Commun 13, 1175. Retrieved from https://rdcu.be/cIpvF

 

Kubota M, Nakazaki S, Hirai S, et al (2001). Alcohol consumption and frontal lobe shrinkage: study of 1432 non-alcoholic subjects. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 71:104-106.

  

Penn Today, Health Sciences. (4 March 2022). Retrieved from https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/one-alcoholic-drink-day-linked-reduced-brain-size