[HN Gopher] Associations between alcohol consumption and gray an...
___________________________________________________________________
Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter
volumes
Author : Bhilai
Score : 50 points
Date : 2022-11-01 17:58 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| vkou wrote:
| > Here, we show that the negative associations between alcohol
| intake and brain macrostructure and microstructure are already
| apparent in individuals consuming an average of only one to two
| DAUs (daily alcohol units), and become stronger as alcohol intake
| increases.
|
| It should be noted that a single 'weak' 5% beer is 1.65 DAUs.
| metadat wrote:
| Does this mean no more megapints?
|
| Seriously though, why doesn't the unit of 1 DAU correspond with
| any existing commercial form factors?
|
| A single 12oz 5% beer would be a more helpful starting point.
| metadat wrote:
| Hmm.. maybe better to avoid alcohol completely, or stick to other
| less harmful recreational drugs and pastimes?
| ramesh31 wrote:
| This is pretty much why I became a nondrinker. Alcohol makes
| you dumb. It impairs thinking, and thinking is the most
| pleasurable thing in the world.
| pstuart wrote:
| > Alcohol makes you dumb
|
| So does canabis (albeit in a rather creative way). I love the
| stuff but it's definitely better in smaller and infrequent
| doses.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| Ehhh - having a whiskey on a porch in the mountains in the
| fall is up there
| christophilus wrote:
| Throw in a cigar or pipe, and it's my favorite guilty
| pleasure.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Yup i'm done as one might infer from my comment history.
| rosywoozlechan wrote:
| it's a cross-sectional study and thus cannot be used to infer
| causality, so it doesn't warrant behavioral changes?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Figure 3 seems to suggest that as long as you average < 1
| drink/day, you're doing (very very slightly) better than
| somebody who averages 0.
| gruez wrote:
| The standard response to that is 0 drinks per day includes
| abstainers who might be former alcoholics and therefore might
| be dragging the average down. Some of the data tables have a
| separate category for "excluding abstainers", but there's no
| line graph that has abstainers excluded.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I would imagine they controlled for that or it's
| insignificant.
| aplusbi wrote:
| Doesn't sound like they controlled for it or even
| considered it. While they did have a control group that
| excluded non-drinkers and heavy drinkers, that was solely
| to control for bias at the extreme ends, and not to
| control for sober alcoholics or health problems that
| preclude drinking.
|
| > Our analyses comprise models that include two different
| sets of control variables. The standard set includes
| standardized age, standardized age squared standardized
| height, handedness (right/left/ambidextrous; dummy-
| coded), sex (female:0, male:1), current smoker status,
| former light smoker, former heavy smoker, and
| standardized Townsend index of social deprivation
| measured at the zip code level62. To control for genetic
| population structure, the models also include the first
| 40 genetic principal components63 and county of residence
| (dummy-coded)62. A second set of extended control
| variables includes all standard control variables and in
| addition standardized BMI, standardized educational
| attainment64, and standardized weight. To determine
| whether observations at the extreme ends of the drinking
| distribution bias the estimates of the relationship
| between alcohol intake and IDPs, we also estimate a model
| that excludes abstainers and a model that excludes heavy
| drinkers (i.e., women who reported consuming more than 18
| units/week and men who consumed more than 24 units/week),
| both with standard controls.
|
| Here they talk about the different groupings:
|
| > we bin participants in the following six categories
| based on average alcohol intake: (1) abstainers, (2)
| individuals who drank less than one unit/day, (3)
| individuals who drank between one (included) and two
| (excluded) units/day (recommended maximal alcohol
| consumption based on the UK Chief Medical Officers "low-
| risk" guidelines32), (4) individuals who drank between
| two (included) and three (excluded) units/day, (5)
| individuals who drank between three (included) and four
| (excluded) units/day, and (6) individuals who drank at
| least four units/day.
|
| Again no mention of sober alcoholics or health problems.
|
| This study: https://www.massgeneral.org/news/press-
| release/large-study-c... found that while moderate
| drinkers had better cardiovascular health than non-
| drinkers, this was due to other lifestyle factors
| associated with moderate drinking, not the drinking
| itself.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| The overall conclusion of the study is "We observe negative
| relationships between alcohol intake and global gray and white
| matter measures". But if you look at Figure 3, it is consistent
| with a J-shaped risk curve with risk equal to nondrinkers around
| 16 grams ethanol per day, like the 16.9 number found for 40-64
| year old males in
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6....
| So I would say this study adds another reason to not overdrink,
| and confirms that current drinking expectations are too high, but
| isn't a reason to abstain entirely.
| boberoni wrote:
| For reference, a single shot (1.5 fl oz of 40% alcohol) has 14g
| of alcohol.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Yeah. And it's a daily average, so you can have 3 drinks
| every Saturday for example (aiming for the TMREL of 6g). I'm
| not sure about the maximum per day; there was a heart disease
| study that defined heavy drinking as 60g in a day,but I
| haven't seen any studies specifically on drinking patterns at
| this low intake.
| insanitybit wrote:
| Ergo, 7 shots once a week and I'm good to go!
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| A pint of beer is 20g.
|
| I used to drink socially when I was young, and I usually had
| more than that.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| >> Alcohol intake explains 1% of the variance in global GMV and
| 0.3% of the variance in global WMV across individuals beyond
| all other control variables (both p < 10-16).
|
| Definitely shows there is some grey and white matter
| reduction... but the impact doesn't seem drastic? Do I use that
| 1%? Do other activities reduce my brain of 1%? I don't know the
| scale of volume they use. I could be wrong.
|
| And looking at figure 2[1], age is also a major factor for
| change in white/grey volume (which they normalize).
|
| [1]
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5/figures/2
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You have to admit the same argument in other contexts is a
| little funny. Like if you were exposed to an industrial
| pollutant that was shown to reduce your brain mass by 1% I
| don't think many people would be saying 'do I really need
| that brain material?' Obviously this is more than a little
| influenced by enjoying the effects of a drug.
| bergenty wrote:
| I mean a pollutant has no upside. Being intoxicated has a
| lot of upsides including a good time, stress relief,
| community etc.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| The old mantra of people only use X% of their brain has been
| found to be hogwash. We use all of our brain, so I'd be very
| worried about a poison that even takes 1%.
|
| > The notion that a person uses only 10 percent of their
| brain is a myth. fMRI scans show that even simple activities
| require almost all of the brain to be active.
|
| https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321060#takeaway
| trh0awayman wrote:
| Logical positivist vs Knight of faith, Berserker approach to life
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-11-01 23:00 UTC)