Science Says Even Moderate Drinking Can Mess With Your Brain – Ugh

Didn't we know this already?

Science Says Even Moderate Drinking Can Mess With Your Brain - Ugh

by Alyss Bowen |
Published on

I’m going to say that on average, most of you reading this article would class yourself as a moderate drinker. I know I would, I don’t drink all the time but if wine, prosecco, or beer is on offer I will more often than not, drink up. Well now according to bloody science we can’t even do that. Are we allowed any pleasures in life?

A new study by the University of Oxford and University of College London has discovered that even moderate drinking (between 14 and 21 units a week) can mess with our brains. They studied 550 civil servants over a 30-year period, noting down their alcohol consumption and cognition. And what did they discover? That the more a person drank, the more likely they were to have ‘hippocampal atrophy.’ Hippo-what-now? To break it down, it’s a form of brain damage that affects our memory and spatial navigation – which is essentially an early marker for Alzheimer’s disease. And even if you’re a ‘moderate drinker’ – so you like to have say 5-6 glasses of wine per week – you’re three times more likely to get hippocampal atrophy.

I’m going to raise my wine glass up high and say this study stresses me. It stresses me because of the amount of information readily available on the internet telling me to do one thing, and then telling me to the exact opposite. What’s a girl (and guy) to do? We can’t win, dammed if we do drink and dammed if we don’t. There was that study that told us that drinking wine engages as much of your brain as solving maths equation, and then that study that said one glass of wine was good for our hearts (which now apparently, isn't), and now this.

I can’t keep up and now the thought of going for a drink after work fills me with dread. Obviously, we would never want to encourage binging, or excessive drinking – but can’t we enjoy a nice glass of (cheap) Malbec without someone trying to throw a study at us to put us off completely? Obviously we know drinking is bad for us, like most things we enjoy in life it's up there with burgers and fries, copious amounts of chocolate, and Domino's - but isn't there enough information on the internet warning us of these risks? I(perhaps controversally) would quite like it if I could go online without having more information about the dangers of having a glass or two of wine thrown at me. How 'bout you?

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**Follow Alyss on Instagram @alyssbowen **

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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