Posted on 09/26/2025 5:32:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Alcohol raises the risk of dementia regardless of whether people are genetically predisposed to the neurodegenerative condition, a large new study suggests.
It is the latest research to confirm that even moderate alcohol consumption can pose health risks. Despite the occasional headline about the benefits of low-level drinking, research has repeatedly shown that no amount of alcohol is safe for our health.
“For anyone who chooses to drink, our study suggests that greater alcohol consumption leads to higher risk of dementia,” Stephen Burgess, a statistician at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement.
The study, which was published in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, included about 560,000 people in the United Kingdom and the United States who were followed over several years, as well as genetic data for about 2.4 million people.
In the first part of the study, researchers asked people how much they drank and then determined the relationship between alcohol and dementia risks. They also analysed genetic markers tied to alcohol use to take into account its cumulative effect over the course of people’s lives.
The higher someone’s genetic risks tied to alcohol, the higher their dementia risks, the study found. If someone had three drinks per week, for example, they were 15 per cent more likely to develop dementia than someone who had one drink per week.
“Genetic evidence offers no support for a protective effect [from alcohol] – in fact, it suggests the opposite,” said Anya Topiwala, one of the study’s authors and a senior clinical researcher at the University of Oxford.
The study does not conclusively prove that drinking alcohol causes dementia, only that the two are linked, cautioned Tara Spires-Jones, director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. She was not involved in the study.
Which country in Europe is home to the continent's heaviest drinkers? However, “fundamental neuroscience work has shown that alcohol is directly toxic to neurons in the brain,” she added in a statement.
In one previous study using brain scans, researchers found that drinking one or two units of alcohol per day was associated with reductions in brain volume and changes to its structure, which may be linked to memory loss and dementia.
The latest study’s authors said their findings add to the growing body of evidence that cutting out alcohol could have serious health benefits.
“Reducing alcohol consumption across the population could play a significant role in dementia prevention,” Topiwala said.
Lifetime non-drinker myself.
I could never stand the taste.
I had two Manhattan’s tonight. I’m writing my obituary. 😏
Let’s ask Teddy Kennedy...oh, wait!
Do you have a source for that statistic?
Lighten up Francis and have a cold one.
Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine too.
Alcohol is also medicinal.
Some people just don’t understand the difference from normal use vs overindulgence.
🐮💩
Never too early for a glass or a lass !
I don’t remember offhand but I’ll look for it it was approximately 15%.
Thanks.
I worked in a town in 1994 where the medical examiner (a man) had breast cancer. He told me there were 1500 males nationwide who had breast cancer.
I will look for a source as well.
Sounds like krep...
Maybe they confused demented with fermented?
“_Sips a bourbon on the rocks_
I’mmm in trouble...”
Life is too short to drink bad bourbon.
“ Trump, Mitt Romney and I are nondrinkers”
And Hitler and Mohammed.
Not a big drinker myself. After a long week I might have a drink on a Friday night if the wife is talking too much. Or at a bbq or something social.
But I go weeks without a drink and seldom have more than one or maybe two.
The old “swallowing spit in low doses leads to death” research.
“included about 560,000 people in the United Kingdom and the United States who were followed over several years, as well as genetic data for about 2.4 million people.”
Worthless study. It is not possible to look at 500,000 - 2,000,000 people and pick out ONE FACTOR that increases anything.
Yep it’s why smokers smoke their lungs have germs and they are trying to smoke the out.
What ARE you smoking?
Because there are conflicting studies on alcohol - as I clearly pointed out - the risk is relative, not absolute.
AND due to conflicting studies the topic is debatable, hence my comment. They should do a study on the narcissism of study authors...and their bias.
Speaking of: You're either making my point for me or bloviating under your own hidden bias.
In any event, I don't GAS.
Drinking any Amount of Alcohol is not good for you!
If you drink alcohol on a regular basis or get drunk on occasion, QUIT NOW!
NOTHING good comes from drinking alcohol. NOTHING!
Give me one GOOD reason for drinking alcohol. Seriously. ONE.
There are NONE. Don’t kid yourselves.
It can be misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's.
A remedy is to take Sulbutiamine, which is a type of thiamine that easily passes into the brain. It is available on the internet as a brain supplement.
Some types of dementia can be reversed, and this is one of them.
I resemble that comment :)
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