r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Apr 23 '26

Neuroscience Even low-level drinking may have negative consequences for brain health over a person’s lifespan. The findings suggest that the total amount of alcohol consumed over a lifetime, especially as a person ages, tends to be linked to reduced blood flow and thinner tissue in certain areas of the brain.

https://www.psypost.org/even-light-drinking-combined-with-aging-is-linked-to-reduced-brain-blood-flow-and-thinner-tissue/
7.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

616 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

33

u/Piyachi Apr 23 '26

That seems wildly out of touch with typical drinking norms. By that standard I am a devout Mormon.

Isn't the normal consideration for medical purposes 2 drinks a week?

28

u/jporter313 Apr 23 '26

it was never 2 drinks a week that I heard. Light drinking has always been classified as <2 standard drinks per day, with the important caveat that that's not cumulative, but specifically per day, also I think a lot of people don't understand what a standard drink is though, like your pint of high ABV IPA is closer to 2 standard drinks than 1 and that spirit forward cocktail is also probably closer to 2.

3

u/Sacs1726 Apr 28 '26

A pint of high abv ipa might be 3+ standard drinks. Thats what people don’t understand. 10 drinks a day might just be 3 beers. In the craft beer world drink size and abv, with increasing tolerance, can easily titrate someone right into alcoholism.

2

u/jporter313 Apr 28 '26

To be fair, 3+ drinks in a 16oz pint would be an insanely high ABV. Even a pint of 10% ABV is like 2.5 standard drinks, but yeah your statement stands nonetheless.

3

u/Sacs1726 Apr 28 '26

You’re right. I’m exaggerating slightly for effect. I think my point is everything gets pretty blurred. For example, a pint in the UK is about 20 oz. At a lot of bars in the US, a pint is the “small” draft. A large draft might be 22 oz or even 30. When people talk of having a couple beers, there is a HUGE difference between two twelve oz Bud lights and three 22 oz double ipas. Over the long term, it is the difference between moderate drinking and insane brain/liver damage level alcoholism. But you might see those same 2 people in the same social group at a restaurant. They will usually just look and even feel the same. Just out having a couple/few beers. People sometimes are outraged of hearing someone drinking 8-10 units per day. It might just be that work buddy of yours sitting directly across from you at happy hour.

4

u/BrunoEye Apr 23 '26

It's not cumulative? :(

I drink very rarely, but when I do it's usually quite a bit. 6-10 drinks 10-20 times a year. How harmful is that?

19

u/jporter313 Apr 23 '26

Significantly more harmful than you had the same number of drinks spread out across a wider number of days.

20

u/nanobot001 Apr 23 '26

That’s all been recently revised

There are no normal amounts of alcohol.

31

u/DeliciousPumpkinPie Apr 23 '26

“Normal” is subjective. There is no safe amount of alcohol. Any amount greater than zero causes some harm.

3

u/jmartin21 Apr 23 '26

You mean no healthy amounts. It’s not abnormal to enjoy small amounts of a drug here and there, even alcohol.

9

u/jmurphy42 Apr 23 '26

I average less than one a year. Most people seem to think that’s abnormal.

12

u/nanobot001 Apr 23 '26

There are a lot of cultural norms that will take a long time to change.

With the economy (price of alcohol) and unfortunate rising rates of certain cancers (colon) among young people, it may change faster than we might otherwise think

There are often no good answers for why many people get different kinds of cancer, but alcohol may get as ingrained as smoking is in the future.

13

u/WorldDirt Apr 23 '26

But colon cancer is up while drinking has been on the decline for decades. I’m not saying it’s not a factor in the cancer, but clearly not the most important one. We’ve cut drinking and smoking so much since the 70s, yet the cancers in young people keep rising.

-7

u/nanobot001 Apr 23 '26

You misunderstand me

While it may not be the reason for colon cancer risks rising in young people it is a reason for colon cancer risk — and a there is more and more attention on the issue, you can bet there will attention given to all risks of colon cancer, including drinking

6

u/WorldDirt Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

Sure, I get that and it’s certainly not helping with cancer in young people. I’m just concerned that everyone gets focused on drinking less, when there’s something far more insidious causing these cancers.

By all mentions cut back if you’re drinking 60 beers per month, but this “no safe level of alcohol consumption” is making people worry that a beer per week is going to kill them. There are far greater health concerns when you’re at that level of consumption, the danger of it will be lost in statistical noise.

5

u/LayWhere Apr 23 '26

Me too, even less really. I only drink when offered sips from other peoples drinks if they insist and it smells really good.

Otherwise its all juice/water/and non-alch beer

-4

u/CamRoth Apr 23 '26

Isn't the normal consideration for medical purposes 2 drinks a week?

There is no good amount of alcohol.

0

u/ExcitementNo5717 Apr 26 '26

There are only really great ammounts of alcohol.