Category: Alcohol

Alcohol helps remove damaging waste from the brain.

A couple of alcoholic drinks can help clear the brain of toxins, new research finds.

Low levels of alcohol — the equivalent of around 2.5 standard drinks per day — may help to remove waste linked to Alzheimer’s disease and reduce inflammation in the brain.

Dr Maiken Nedergaard, who led the study, said:

“Prolonged intake of excessive amounts of ethanol is known to have adverse effects on the central nervous system.

However, in this study we have shown for the first time that low doses of alcohol are potentially beneficial to brain health, namely it improves the brain’s ability to remove waste.”

The study helps support the view of some research that suggests low levels of alcohol intake can be beneficial.

The new study gave varying amounts of alcohol to mice and looked at the effect on their brains.

Those given high levels of alcohol over a long period showed increasing levels of damaging inflammation.

They also had worse cognitive and motor performance.

In the mice given low doses — equivalent to 2.5 standard drinks per day — the brain was more efficient at removing waste than those not exposed to alcohol.

The mice on low doses of alcohol also showed no differences in cognitive or motor performance with those given no alcohol.

Dr Nedergaard said:

“The data on the effects of alcohol on the glymphatic system seemingly matches the J-shaped model relating to the dose effects of alcohol on general health and mortality, whereby low doses of alcohol are beneficial, while excessive consumption is detrimental to overall health.

Studies have shown that low-to-moderate alcohol intake is associated with a lesser risk of dementia, while heavy drinking for many years confers an increased risk of cognitive decline.

This study may help explain why this occurs.

Specifically, low doses of alcohol appear to improve overall brain health.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Lundgaard et al., 2018).

Anxiety about speaking a foreign language often stops people performing at their best.

Alcohol can improve your ability to speak a foreign language, a new study finds.

A low dose of alcohol — around a pint of beer for a man — enabled German speakers to better use their newly learned Dutch.

Alcohol seems to be particularly beneficial for the pronunciation of foreign languages.

Although the study did not test this, it may be because alcohol lowers social anxiety and increases self-confidence.

Dr Inge Kersbergen, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Our study shows that acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who recently learned that language.

This provides some support for the lay belief (among bilingual speakers) that a low dose of alcohol can improve their ability to speak a second language.”

The study compared the effects of a low dose of alcohol with a control drink that contained no alcohol.

Both groups of native German speakers held a short conversation in Dutch with the experimenter.

Afterwards they rated themselves and were rated by native Dutch speakers.

People did not think they themselves were speaking Dutch any better after alcohol, but Dutch observers liked their pronunciation better.

Dr Fritz Renner, the study’s first author, said:

“It is important to point out that participants in this study consumed a low dose of alcohol.

Higher levels of alcohol consumption might not have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language.”

Indeed alcohol damages the ability to pay attention, to remember and to….stand up straight.

Dr Jessica Werthmann, study co-author, said:

“We need to be cautious about the implications of these results until we know more about what causes the observed results.

One possible mechanism could be the anxiety-reducing effect of alcohol.

But more research is needed to test this.”

The study was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology (Renner et al., 2017).

The drink may help consolidate new memories.

Alcohol can enhance memory for things learned just before drinking, new research finds.

For the research, 88 people learned a series of words.

Half then drink around 4 UK units of alcohol.

This is around 2 standard drinks in the US.

When tested the next day, those that drank alcohol after learning could remember more words.

It is thought that alcohol may help to block out new information, so helping you retain what you have just learned.

Professor Celia Morgan, who led the research, said:

“Our research not only showed that those who drank alcohol did better when repeating the word-learning task, but that this effect was stronger among those who drank more.”

Professor Morgan continued:

“The causes of this effect are not fully understood, but the leading explanation is that alcohol blocks the learning of new information and therefore the brain has more resources available to lay down other recently learned information into long-term memory.

The theory is that the hippocampus — the brain area really important in memory — switches to ‘consolidating’ memories, transferring from short into longer-term memory.”

The study’s authors were quick to point out that alcohol has a limited positive effect when set against the damage to mental and physical health.

For example, one recent study found:

“Even moderate levels of alcohol consumption are linked to long-term brain damage and declines in mental skills, new research finds.

Moderate alcohol intake means around 14 to 21 UK units per week (in the US this is between 7 and 10 standard drinks, which are 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine etc.).

The study also found no support for the idea that low levels of alcohol intake are beneficial for the brain.

The conclusions come from a British study of 550 healthy men and women followed over 30 years.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Carlyle et al., 2017).