Sunday, July 5, 2020

Light drinking may protect brain function



I stopped drinking a few years back, but I used to love real ale. I always felt a bit guilty, though, as I would do what doctors would describe as binge drinking. I would have two pints of beer within an hour or two and really feel it, and if you do that you are apparently drinking dangerously and are binge drinking. Inebriated, I would sit and love playing my piano for the next hour or so. A grand evening.


In a BCC /Radio 4 documentary about alcohol years ago, a journalist went and visited a professor who studied the effects of alcohol. Alcohol, he said, effected us differently at different times of the day, so two pints of beer at lunchtime would be twice as strong as two drunk in the evening. She, the journalist, asked him if he drank at all, and he said he had two glasses of wine with his evening meal each evening, and then he would go to the pub to play a game of pool with his friends and have two pints of beer. She said to him, did he know this was binge drinking? He retorted, 'Frankly, that's ridiculous'. I agree. I've done more than that, and it can hardly be called binge drinking.


Summary: Light to moderate weekly alcohol consumption during middle age could help preserve brain function as we get older. Compared to non-drinkers, those who had a drink or two a day tended to have better performance on cognitive tests over time.

Neuroscience News

Light drinking may protect brain function


3 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

This from the Old Testament:

Ecclesiastes 10:19
Men prepare a meal for enjoyment, and wine makes life merry, and money is the answer to everything. Ecclesiastes 10:19

Also, reminds me of this:

"For the scientist that has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance. He is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

~Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomer

Matt Franko said...

“ scientist that has lived by his faith in the power of reason, ”

LOL Science is the opposite of reason idiot....

Peter Pan said...

More drinking, less tweeting = a healthy mind