No such thing as a safe amount of alcohol

There’s no such thing as a safe amount to drink—even one glass of wine can increase the risk of dementia.

New research overturns the belief that small amounts of alcohol protect the brain, especially as we age.   Drinking even one to three glasses of wine every week increases the risk of dementia by 15 percent, say researchers from Oxford and Stanford universities.

But their findings are controversial, and rely on an unproven genetic modelling system, critics have argued.

The researchers tracked 559,559 participants, aged between 56 and 72, for five to 10 years, and 14,540 of them developed dementia during the life of the study.  More than 90 percent reported that they drank alcohol.

As almost every study before had noted, there was a U-shaped association with alcohol: round 41 percent of non-drinkers had a high risk of dementia, as did heavy drinkers.  But those who drank moderately—who made up the base of the U shape—were the least likely to develop dementia, which suggested that alcohol was protective.

But when the researchers applied genetic markers to the data, the protective effects of alcohol disappeared. They used a modelling technique called Mendelian randomization genetic analyses and applied three genetic measures: self-reported weekly drinks (641 independent genetic variants); problematic ‘risky’ drinking (80 genetic variants); and alcohol dependency (66 genetic variants).

Aside from using unproven modelling system, the researchers also relied on people self-reporting their alcohol intake, which may have skewed the results.

What do you think? Start a conversation over on the... WDDTY Community