Moderate Drinking & Health - Does It Help, Harm Or What?

A person could get whiplash trying to keep up with all the research on the pros and cons of moderate drinking.

One day a couple of drinks are seen as having health benefits the next day ia couple of drinks are the devil.

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Alcohol Is An Important Local Commodity

Yakima is an important wine, beer, and cider producing region and this kind of information could have an economic impact so we vow to share and reshare all the information we find.

A week ago today I posted a story about how wine, and red wine in particular, offers promise in staving off type II diabetes. So what day is it today? It's whiplash-reverse direction day, with new "brain shrinking" research out of Pennsylvania.

Science Says...

Fox News did the reporting on this and discovered:

Drinking one to two alcoholic drinks each day is not great for your brain. University of Pennsylvania researchers found drinking an average of one to two alcoholic drinks each day can be associated with not only negative changes in the gray and white matter of the brain, but also a reduction in brain volume. The National Institute on Aging says our brains naturally shrink over time, but this new study suggests alcohol consumption can accelerate size reduction

Negative Outcomes With A Confusing Contradiction

So what happens when your brain shrinks? Your hat fits better? No, and this is no laughing matter because you could experience a more rapid decline in memory, and decision-making.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on record about limiting daily drinks to two drinks for men and one drink for women so how does that square with the brain-shrink study? It doesn't. So who do you believe?

Far From A Perfect Study

To be fair there were some limitations to the study and it could prove "causation" as science calls it but the researchers stand by there results.

the idea that moderate drinking promotes health appears no longer defensible. For pretty much any level of drinking, a reduction is likely to yield health benefits.

That's it for now...until the next study shows something else and runs counter to this one! It's the weekend, drink responsibly - whatever that means today.

LOOK: Food history from the year you were born

From product innovations to major recalls, Stacker researched what happened in food history every year since 1921, according to news and government sources.

Source: Moderate Drinking & Health – Does It Help, Harm Or What?

Categories: Yakima News