Brain health, alcohol and a conflict of information

This morning as I was glancing through the News app on my phone, an article from EatingWell popped up called “7 Sneaky Lifestyle Habits That Could Increase Your Dementia Risk”. My grandmother passed away from dementia several years ago after smoking a pack a day for six decades, so I’m always interested in reducing my own risk. The promo photo was a silhouette of a women drinking a large glass of wine which also piqued my interest. I quickly scrolled down the article to find the section on alcohol consumption, assuming the article was going to recommend cutting alcohol out of your diet. I was dead wrong.

The article cites a neurodegenerative specialist indicating ‘moderate drinking is safe’ but drinking in excess can lead to harm. This is true irregardless of dementia risk, but what surprised me is that this statement is contradictory to a well-publicized and recent study on alcohol and brain health.

Last month, Oxford University published the results of an in-depth study of 25,000 participants, the first of its kind, that indicated they found no amount of drinking is good for your brain. Even one glass of wine or bottle of beer affects your grey matter, and over time it’s a cumulative effect that eventually reduces the brain’s optimal performance.

Alcohol research in the media

One of the ideas that Annie Grace discusses in her book This Naked Mind is to take notice of the surplus of media coverage touting the benefits of drinking vs the lack of media coverage of serious scientific research pointing to how harmful it is. Here is a very good example of both mixed media messages, but also the conflict amongst healthcare practitioners. A wide-ranging study like the Oxford study would have been read by anyone in the brain health field, so Dr. Tripathi’s stance on moderation is surprising.

Gill Tietz, MS Biology, sober scientist and host of the Sober Powered podcast says that there really is no grey area when it comes to this area of research.

“Many of the studies that tried to demonstrate moderate drinking is protective against dementia and Alzheimer’s have since been proven wrong. Alcohol damages all areas of the brain and increases the risk of stroke, brain cancer, and dementia. One 2005 study published in Epidemiology found that people who binge drink in mid life are 3 times more likely to develop dementia, and people who pass out from binge drinking are 10 times more likely to develop dementia.”

Misleading medical ‘opinions’

Although this article is not specifically saying there are benefits to drinking, the writer does suggest that “One glass of wine a night is OK”. This point of view is not attributed so I was unsure if it’s the writer’s own opinion or if this is a direct medical recommendation from Dr. Tripathy herself. It is misleading to anyone who doesn’t have the critical thinking skills around media and drinking.

The ironic aspect of all of this is dementia and alcohol use disorder have so many parallels. Tripathy says “Dementia causes an impairment in cognitive function that interferes with day-to-day living, as it affects memory, decision-making, thinking and social abilities”. You could replace the word dementia with alcohol and make the same statement. To an outsider and someone not in the medical community, it would make common sense based on the above statement for anyone with a risk of dementia not to take a risk with alcohol.

The awareness around alcohol in society and alcohol marketing is growing, as more and more North American women start to re-evaluate their health. I hope that this will help evolve the way the media write about alcohol, and how the medical profession presents information. For now, I remain alcohol-free so that I too can reduce any risk I have of dementia and live as long and as healthy as possible.