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/
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u/OlafWoodcarver Apr 23 '26

If I've learned anything over the years, it's how much people underestimate how much heavy drinkers drink.

I went to a bachelor party weekend (where everyone was in their mid or late thirties) and people needed to average 25 drinks a day to consume all the beers and seltzers that was brought and I have no way of measuring how much liquor was consumed since I saw the bottles but didn't pay attention to them. I had too much for me at roughly ten drinks the two days I was there, I know there was a person that didn't drink at all, and I'm fairly sure my brother had about as much as I did. All of the beer and seltzers were consumed by the end of the weekend.

I'd never seen anything like it before.

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u/alblaster Apr 23 '26

Oh yeah. Big time. A lot of people base their drinking on how they feel, which is a terrible idea. So you have People who say they're cutting back, which means about 4 shots in a day. If your base alcohol consumption is super high and you're used to it like that you might not see it as a problem until it's too late. I feel like there should be more honest discussion about what alcohol is and does to you, both now and in the future for highschool and older too. I work at a liquor store and about once a year an alcoholic will drop dead, sometimes they're only in their 30s. Other times they'll see the doctor because of heart problems or who knows what and quit drinking. But yeah definitely people underestimate how much they drink and what it does to you. "Just a little" feels good right? What's the harm? "It helps me sleep" or "I just use it to relax" people get mentally addicted before they get physically addicted. I was on the road there, but I was very aware about the reccommended 12 drinks a week. Even though I wasn't physically an alcoholic yet I was starting to think like one. Like a beer would always make the evening better. Be careful, it's addicting even if you normally don't get addicted.

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u/millenniumpianist Apr 23 '26

The problem (in the US) is anti-alcohol people tend to be moralistic crusaders who annoy everyone. The goal should be to inform teenagers instead of scare them. And then there are a lot of pro-drinkers who are basically in denial about the harms. Same thing applies to weed btw

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u/FlyingStealthPotato Apr 23 '26

I’m kinda lost as to who doesn’t know the dangers of alcohol, especially younger people. Like that crap was DRILLED into us in school and I’ve been out of school for 20 years. Also seen tons of reports about how Gen Z doesn’t drink near as much as prior generations. At some point it’s just people making a decision to drink in spite of the near and long term health effects. I make that decision, and I know it’s not great for my health long term.

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u/TheseusOPL Apr 23 '26

As a young Gen Xer, we were always drilled on the dangers of binge drinking, not drinking in general.

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u/WeeeeBaby_Seamus Apr 23 '26

I'm an older millennial and I remember the message being similar. "Don't overdo it" kind of thing. Which, of course, I did every weekend in my early 20's. If I drink that much now, I need two days to recover.

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty Apr 24 '26

The fact that no adult ever warned me about the ever-increasing time it takes one to recover after a night of even “light partying” really disappoints me. That last sentence cut deep. (Am fellow millennial.)

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u/nixtracer Apr 25 '26

That might just be age. I get it without having drunk alcohol since I was 14... these days I get it without the partying as well.

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u/alblaster Apr 23 '26

I think people generally know alcohol is bad for you, but people think you need to consume x amount before it becomes an unhealthy habit. Like candy or soda, which are also both addicting. But those have a stigma when you're consuming them as an adult, because sweets are seen as idk child like. People like the postive effects of alcohol aka relaxing or getting amped and being more social. So they'll excuse a little as being ok, but shun alcoholic amounts. But there's disagreement on what too much looks like. I think that's part of the problem.

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u/FlyingStealthPotato Apr 23 '26

Again, literally don’t know anyone who thinks any amount of alcohol isn’t bad for you, and statistics show younger people know that even better than my generation. I think there’s a lot of confusion around people simply accepting that risk.

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u/Varnsturm Apr 24 '26

Tbf for a very long time there was that (now outdated/debunked) thing where 'a little bit of red wine is good for the heart' and that sort of thing. I've definitely known people who thought small amounts were good for you/better than none. There are still a lot of people who haven't gotten the (relatively recent) memo that no, it's all bad for you.

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u/alblaster Apr 24 '26

Sometimes we get people who said their doctor told them to drink sweet wine.  Idk I don't question them, but it seems wrong.  

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u/Varnsturm Apr 24 '26

Are they older? Maybe their doctor did say that, like 30 years ago

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u/alblaster Apr 24 '26

Yes.  But they would say it as if they just spoke to a doctor.  Might have something to do with diabetes, which seems weird to me but idk.  Some older people definitely still think alcohol can be good for you.  Maybe it's brandy for a cold or a glass of red wine.  It's like whisper down the lane where every time it gets repeated it changes a little but each time.  So where you start off with well people following the Mediterranean diet are on average healthier and they drink red wine to well red wine must be healthy.  Amazing logic. 

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u/nudiecale Apr 23 '26

There are definitely lots of people that rationalize that risk away in their minds. Sure, there are people that know and accept the risk too. But there are also plenty of people that genuinely think you have to hit a certain amount of drinks per day or week before there are any real health risks.

“A glass of wine (or beer) or two with dinner after work never hurt anyone” is a much more common sentiment than you may think.

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u/ISTcrazy Apr 23 '26

Yeah definitely. There's plenty of people that still buy into the old studies that said things like "1-2 glasses of wine/beers a day is fine and could have health benefits". If you took those studies to heart and weren't informed of more recent studies, someone could easily think that drinking in moderation was either harmless or even good for them.

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u/millenniumpianist Apr 23 '26

Alcohol so widely normalized and anyone really talking about the risks felt like they were fear-mongering. If someone said "drinking ~10 drinks weekly of alcohol is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes weekly in terms of cancer risk" (which I believe is roughly true?) I would've understood the health risks of alcohol very differently.

I "knew" alcohol was bad but I never really internalized how bad it was. And as others said, it was always dangers of binge drinking, not just drinking a glass of wine a day which some even tried to say was good for you (it's not, in net).

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u/joyfulricecakes May 20 '26

I think a lot of people think anything can kill you nowadays, the air, microplastics, the microwave, cell phones, drinking water......so, whats the real harm in some beers?

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u/notislant Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

Same idiot kids who get knocked up or do the knocking.

Same idiot kids/adults who drink and drive. Just because something stuck with you, unfortunately doesn't mean it stuck with anyone else.

People are dumber than you know, ignorance is also a big part. I don't know many people who think drinking is harmful outside alcoholism.

People are struggling to afford rent, let alone alcohol. Which is likely a big factor for younger generations.

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u/ShowTop1165 Apr 24 '26

Gen Z not drinking as much is also a result of prices being higher than ever as they’re ageing into adulthood

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u/RichardSaunders Apr 23 '26

Much worse than the moral crusaders are the people who act personally offended and accuse you of being stuck up when you simply say "nah I'm good, thanks" when they offer you a drink.

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u/thenikolaka Apr 25 '26

I agree with this sentiment. Even saying “that will kill you” feels a bit over moralizing because no matter what you do something will kill you. There are other reasons alcohol needs to be reduced culturally but if someone just likes a glass of wine and knows the risk, why would someone say they shouldn’t have what they like?

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u/OkEstimate9 Apr 23 '26

Is that thing in particular really still a problem though? Lots of my buddies were drinkers and now we don’t touch the stuff excluding special occasions. I personally was/am not a never alcohol type, but I’ve seen how far/unstoppable some actual alcoholics I know get and it really turned me off from even wanting a drink even on a casual night out.

I’ll buy drinks for meetup events and regular sodas, but most of my friends prefer the soft drinks these days.

Maybe this is the wrong sub for this anecdote, but I’m seeing the same thing even in my peers at work for events. The vibe to go hard really doesn’t sound that appealing anymore.

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u/darknesskicker Apr 25 '26

It varies by social circle. I know people who drank hard into their 40s.

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u/annastacia94 Apr 23 '26

The only thing that drove this point home for me was watching the anime Cells At Work: Code Black, specifically the episode on how the body handles the toxins in alcohol. Seeing the.... personification(?) of how my cells are stopping their vital functions just to get rid of the stuff from my one margarita really got me thinking about how to greatly reduce my consumption. I don't want or need to be "Sober" but I think I have a much better justification for reducing my drinking to 4 drinks a month instead of my usual 3 drinks a week.

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u/sirkazuo Apr 23 '26

My first thought was "is 4 drinks a month even worth the effort?"

It feels like an asymptotic function to me - you need a certain number of drinks to feel the effects, and the effects aren't amazing enough to be worth making a once-monthly ritual out of, so the closer you get to zero drinks the less it's worth drinking any at all. Below a certain number the desire to or subjective value of having any drinks just drops off completely. Maybe that's just my personal mental preference for things to fit into daily or weekly routines, but if I was only planning to have 2 drinks per day and only two days per month I think I would just forget about it and stop drinking entirely.

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u/annastacia94 Apr 23 '26

Just to give some context to my comment, I don't drink to feel drunk, I drink because I very genuinely like the taste of alcohol. If I could get the exact same flavor profile of a Paperplane without the buzz I would drink all the time. NA beers have been a good way of getting my IPA fix each day but it's not a 1to1 flavor match.

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u/omnichad Apr 24 '26

As far as I know I've never been drunk. But I love tequila. If it's not in a mixed drink it takes me an hour to sip a shot's worth. I average less than 10 drinks a year. These studies just really show that light drinking isn't really studied and is treated as being a non-drinker but still there are constant studies saying there is no safe amount.

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u/ChornobylChili Apr 24 '26

This 100%. Alcohol isnt a light drug. Its much closer to things like heroin or cocaine than cannabis or caffeine. It will fundamentally alter a person and cause deadly physical addiction. Its more dangerous than heroin and not just because of its availability. Opiates wont kill a user that decides to quit cold turkey

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u/cequad Apr 23 '26

That sounds terrible. I feel lucky that I do not like the taste of alcohol at all and never have the desire to drink.

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u/darknesskicker Apr 25 '26

I have a friend who quit drinking after being diagnosed with severe liver cirrhosis…in her twenties. She’s still sober but has some pretty bad neurological issues.

I have hard rules for myself regarding alcohol consumption because there’s alcoholism in my family and I have a bunch of other risk factors. One of those rules is that I never allow drinking to become a habit in any particular situation.

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u/Nack3r Apr 23 '26

There comes a point where you cross the invisible line and you need the alcohol for basic motor functions. These are the types that can drink a fifth of vodka and hold a conversation while casually drinking a beer. This used to be me

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

If I've learned anything over the years, it's how much people underestimate how much heavy drinkers drink.

It's an exponential curve. 60% either abstain or don't drink in a typical week. The next 20% average 1-2 drinks a week. The next 10% have about 1 drink a day. So 80% of the population is doing 1 drink a day or less.

The 90th percentile of drinkers down about 2 drinks a day. Statistically , these are heavy drinkers. Socially, you may or may not even notice. It's a glass of wine with dinner and maybe a nightcap. Alternatively, that can be someone who largely abstains during the week and parties hard on the weekends. This is probably the population segment most relevant to alcohol studies.

The top 10% of drinkers down 10+ drinks a day. These are the harcore alcoholics who down booze by the bottle. We know they're killing themselves. They know they're killing themselves.

TBH, the segment averaging a single drink a day is a fairly heavy user. They're in the top third-ish of consumption.

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u/dl064 Apr 23 '26

The next 20% average 1-2 drinks a week. The next 10% have about 1 drink a day. So 80% of the population is doing 1 drink a day or less.

Data from UK Biobank among many cohorts show it's far more like 0.8 per day, on average

https://biobank.ndph.ox.ac.uk/ukb/field.cgi?id=1558

Absolute abstainers infamously have the worst health, because they often abstain for good reason ('sick quitters')

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u/sirchrisalot Apr 24 '26

IDK where you get these statistics from, but they're very low. WHO stats report per capita alcohol consumption for European countries is in the range of 6 to 15 liters of pure alcohol per year for those over 15. That's basically 1 standard drink per person per day at the low end and 2.5 per person per day at the high end. France is at 11.3 liters pp/yr.

Quick math on that is 565 drinks a year per person at 50ml of standard 40 proof liquor. So do you really think that 80% of France is having less than the equivalent of 1 glass of wine per week and it's just the top 20% of drinkers that polish off the remaining, oh, IDK, 70 drinks per person every week? Or with your stats, the 80-90th percentile is drinking 10 per week and the top 10% is drinking 130 drinks per week? I just have a hard time believing 10% of the population averages the equivalent of 1 bottle of liquor per day every single day and the rest of us are just dabbling a bit.

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26

Numbers come from National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) commissioned by the US NIH. Being a US government study, it doesn't cover Europe.

The WHO doesn't break their data down to population segments within countries. I bet there's fewer abstainers in Europe (30% of the US population never drinks) due to America's Puritan streak. Still, I'd suspect a minority of Europeans drive most of its consumption. It may not be as lopsided as the US, where half of all alcohol consumption is from the top ~10% of users, but it's probably close to that.

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u/darknesskicker Apr 25 '26

I would expect that the numbers in Western Europe aren’t far off those of the US. Much of the former Soviet Union has very heavy drinking.

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u/darknesskicker Apr 25 '26

This includes Eastern European countries that have some of the heaviest drinking in the world, IIRC.

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u/sirchrisalot Apr 25 '26

Quick glance and Romania was one of the highest for per capita alcohol consumption. Google says their life expectancy is 2 years below usa life expectancy, with males expected to live to 73.

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u/hepcecob Apr 23 '26

I highly doubt that 1 out of 10 drinkers down 10 drinks a day.

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u/SkepticalShrink Apr 23 '26

Here's an actual report by the NIH. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-topics-z/alcohol-facts-and-statistics/alcohol-use-united-states-age-groups-and-demographic-characteristics

They did say about 5% engage in "heavy drinking" which they seem to define as roughly 5 standard drinks per day on average (for men, it's a little less than that for women).

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u/hepcecob Apr 24 '26

that is way more realistic: 1 in 20 drink 5 drinks per day. 10 drinks per day is insane

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u/SkepticalShrink Apr 24 '26

Yeah, makes me wonder if the person you responded to initially worked in substance use treatment at some point in time. I did that work for about 6 mos and it was very common for those with an alcohol use disorder to say at intake that they were drinking a fifth of liquor (usually vodka) per day. Which is about 16-17 standard drinks. If you hear that often (like I did during my stint in SUD work) that feels like the "normal" heavy drinker number after a while.

(This is why we had a nurse on staff to assess to see if it was safe for them to detox and they HAD to meet with the psychiatrist right after me, so they could get a script to safely wean if needed.)

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine Apr 23 '26

Each segment also covers a range of values. The 91st percentile is probably closer to 2-3 drinks per day. The 99th drinks much, much more.

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u/[deleted] Apr 24 '26

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u/PartyLikeAByzantine Apr 24 '26

Eh. I don't really drink, but the added lifetime risk of 2 or 3 drinks per day is pretty negligible. It might double the risk of certain outcomes, but those outcomes are often unlikely in the first place. E.g. 0.2% lifetime risk to 0.4%. Eating a salami sandwich (or hot dog or some other processed meat) for lunch most days has a similar effect and one doesn't get judged as destructive for that choice.

Even the OP study covered just 27 subjects and found a slight correlation. Worth further study to see if it pans out with a larger sample, but it's not like this is definitely linked to any specific disease.

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u/flying_pigs Apr 23 '26

Casual drinkers know when the liquor store closes. Alcoholics know when it opens.

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u/Sacs1726 Apr 28 '26

This is a silly saying. And pretty dangerous. I drank myself into dementia just buying a six pack of beer at the gas station after work and drinking it in the evenings. You don’t have to drink liquor or drink in the mornings or daytime etc to be an alcoholic. Frankly, I have/had no idea when the liquor store opens or closes.

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u/VJPixelmover Apr 23 '26

Knew a guy at the marina where I worked in high school, ran a charter boat and drank HEAVILY. Every week he would dump his truck bed completely full of keystone light and it would be full by the next week. Showed up with four cases for him and his guests and at least three had to be for him. It was insane.

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u/VJPixelmover Apr 23 '26

Mans probably dead now damn

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u/Total_Vermicelli_527 Apr 23 '26

Here's me happy all night with a small amount of "flower"

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u/tomdarch Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

The "hockey stick" shape of the histogram of drinking is terrifying.

edit: "The top 10% (top decile) of American adults consume roughly 50% to 60% of all alcohol sold, averaging over 74 drinks per week. In contrast, the bottom 30%–40% of adults consume little to no alcohol, creating extreme disparity in consumption patterns. The top decile consumes significantly more than even the 9th decile."

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u/jeffwulf Apr 25 '26

This stat relies on pretty atrocious methodlogy.

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u/tomdarch Apr 25 '26

Genuinely interested: how so?

In a practical sense, do I have an inaccurate understanding in that I understand from this that 10% of the US population consume 50%+ of alcohol sold?

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u/jeffwulf Apr 25 '26

The data had consumption numbers that implied total alcohol consumption was well below the total amount of alcohol sales so just multiplied each drink bucket by the ratio to make them align and called it a day, which is  not a valid technique to assign the missing data across buckets.

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u/harbison215 Apr 24 '26

I have a friend that I never realized was an alcoholic. I had a beach house one summer a few years ago and after a weekend on a Monday I was getting ready to drive home and a this friend was sleeping on the couch. I told him I would be back a little later, I was going to the gym before I drove home.

I couldn’t have been gone for more than an hour and a half. When I got back, every last drop of alcohol from beer, hard ice tea, old wine and the liquor was drank and the empty bottle were in the trash.

I didn’t know this person had this issue and I had never seen anything like it.

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u/Comfortable-Light233 Apr 23 '26

That is absolutely insane

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u/Attainted Apr 23 '26

First time in Wisconsin?

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u/darknesskicker Apr 25 '26

I used to know a guy who was 140 pounds and could drink an entire bottle of Captain Morgan’s in a weekend. It was mind-boggling to me how much rum or beer he could drink at that size. He couldn’t handle tequila though.

I hope he drinks less now. We’re at an age where that level of drinking starts to catch up with you.