If someone walked up to you with a 16-ounce glass of liquid and said the following:
“I’d like for you to drink this and when you do you may experience dizziness, difficulty reading, and difficulty walking in a straight line. In fact, your cognitive functioning will deteriorate so much that it will be illegal to drive. If you get caught driving while you are still feeling these effects you will be arrested and possibly jailed.
Assuming that you do not drive and therefore do not get caught driving illegally, you will still have a few issues to deal with. For example, after you have drunk all of this liquid you may also experience fatigue of such intensity that you pass out. In addition, it may also cause you to have an upset stomach. So much so that you may very well throw up. In the morning your head will hurt as a result of having suffered brain damage from the liquid and you may not feel like getting out of bed.”
Would you drink it?
Unfortunately, I bet you would if you’re like most Americans. One thing we know for sure is that Americans love to do things that they know aren’t good for them and one of those things is drinking alcohol.
Alcohol is implicated in a number of very serious diseases and always has been. It’s just that it isn’t very well publicized. Alcohol contributes to type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, acid reflux, obesity, and even multiple sclerosis.
Mainstream liquor manufacturers (and their well-paid marketing teams) have done an excellent job convincing us that a moderate drinking habit CAN actually benefit our overall health. Bull roar….
The reality is just the opposite. I swore off alcohol years ago because it truly was pickling my brain, causing weight gain and severely interfering with my ability to sleep. I believe I was showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and was later able to confirm as much. How did I avoid Alzheimer’s? One of the things I did was stop drinking alcohol. Full stop.
Today there is an important new study looking at over 20,000 people in the United Kingdom which clearly establishes that as little as four standard alcoholic drinks a week can be linked to brain changes associated with cognitive decline, specifically Alzheimer’s (Topiwala et al., 2022).
However, most people are completely in the dark about the dangers of alcohol. Over the years several studies have begun to shed light on the detrimental effects of alcohol, from raising one’s risk of cancer to causing structural damage to the brain (Rumgay et al., 2021) (Rosenbloom et al., 1995).
The hypothesis driving the research arose from studies associating high brain iron levels with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. One study found that increased brain iron levels directly correlate with moderate alcohol consumption(Ward et al., 2014).
What has iron got to do with brain health?
Abnormal accumulations of iron in the brain have been detected in the brains of heavy alcohol drinkers, so this study wanted to know if the association could also be found in moderate drinkers. Turns out it could.
What the researchers found was that the brain is highly susceptible to damage due to iron overload. Iron accumulation in the brain has been found to impair cognitive function in various neurodegenerative diseases and is specifically implicated in Alzheimer\’s disease.
Bottom line, you might want to rethink whether or not you want to put that stuff in your body. It attacks the brain. We are talking about the most important organ in the body. It also causes all manners of disease. Is it worth it? I think not.
References
Rosenbloom, M. J., Pfefferbaum, A., & Sullivan, E. V. (1995). Structural Brain Alterations Associated With Alcoholism. Alcohol health and research world, 19(4), 266–272. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6875746/
Rumgay, H., Shield, K., Charvat, H., Ferrari, P., Sornpaisarn, B., Obot, I., Islami, F., Lemmens, V. E. P. P., Rehm, J., & Soerjomataram, I. (2021). Global burden of cancer in 2020 attributable to alcohol consumption: a population-based study. The Lancet Oncology, 22(8), 1071-1080. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(21)00279-5.
Topiwala, A., Wang, C., Ebmeier, K. P., Burgess, S., Bell, S., Levey, D. F., Zhou, H., McCracken, C., Roca-Fernández, A., Petersen, S. E., Raman, B., Husain, M., Gelernter, J., Miller, K. L., Smith, S. M., & Nichols, T. E. (2022). Associations between moderate alcohol consumption, brain iron, and cognition in UK Biobank participants: Observational and mendelian randomization analyses. PLOS Medicine, 19(7), e1004039. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1004039
Ward, R. J., Zucca, F. A., Duyn, J. H., Crichton, R. R., & Zecca, L. (2014). The role of iron in brain ageing and neurodegenerative disorders. The Lancet. Neurology, 13(10), 1045-1060. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(14)70117-6
