1,2,3 1,2,3 drink
1,2,3 1,2,3 drink
1,2,3 1,2,3 drink
Throw 'em back, 'til I
lose count
The lyrics from Sia’s
famous song, Chandelier has dark implications behind its catchy tune. Science
has been trying for years to prove that alcohol is detrimental to the brain due
to structure relating to function. This damage may be direct or indirect due to
the poor health of the individual or some form of liver disease.
In England, a top dementia
doctor, Professor Alistair Burns announced that drinking large amounts of
alcohol increases the risk for dementia. Dementia is a brain condition that causes
problems with thinking and memory. Dementia usually comes with old age and
common symptoms are impaired thinking and forgetfulness.
Cutting out alcohol completely may
be difficult for people so Professor Alistair Burns recommended cutting back.
He hypothesized that cutting down could make a difference in in people’s mental
states later on in their lives.
The
NHS, the National Health Service in the UK, recommends that men should not
drink more than three to four units per day and women should not drink more
than two to three units per day. One unit is equivalent to half a beer. The
math would then make it to a male drinking 2 bottles a beer and a female
drinking 1 bottle.
This
correlated with what Dr. Collins said is the “moderation” level of human
alcohol consumption in his talk on October 13th, 2015 to my Neuroscience
Seminar Class at Loyola University of Chicago. Prior to listening to his talk,
we read his research article, “Moderate Ethanol Preconditioning of Rat Brain Cultures
Engenders Neuroprotection Against Dementia-Inducing Neuroinflammatory Proteins:
Possible Signaling Mechanisms.” Dr. Collins started his talk with a quote from
the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, “That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.” This was an interesting perspective as there are so much
research that is against alcohol altogether but Dr. Collins’ talked about
moderation of alcohol and how it could benefit us.
Dr.
Collins talked about how 20-30mM of ethanol is not neurotoxic. In his
experiment, he had organotypic slice cultures of rat hippocampal-entorhinal
cortex which he contained within 20-30 mM of ethanol for four to six days. In relation
to humans, this means one beer for women and two beer for men per day. This
correlates with the recommended servings of beer by the NHS. While Dr. Collins’
article concluded about how moderate ethanol may lessen the beginnings of the
neuroinflammatory processes associated with brain aging, this is still
uncertain due to the research having been done only on rats and specifically
young rats.
Although
popular pop songs have lyrics that propagate binge drinking such as “Shots
shots shots shots shots shots” by LMFAO, it may be a good idea to take a step
back and take any forms of alcohol in moderation.
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