SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
You have to protect yourself.
Light drinking may protect brain function:
UGA study shows that for older people it could help cognitive condition
[...] The study examined the link between alcohol consumption and changes in cognitive function over time among middle-aged and older adults in the U.S.
[...] Compared to nondrinkers, they found that those who had a drink or two a day tended to perform better on cognitive tests over time.
Even when other important factors known to impact cognition such as age, smoking or education level were controlled for, they saw a pattern of light drinking associated with high cognitive trajectories.
The optimal amount of drinks per week was between 10 and 14 drinks. But that doesn't mean those who drink less should start indulging more, says Zhang.
"It is hard to say this effect is causal," he said. "So, if some people don't drink alcoholic beverages, this study does not encourage them to drink to prevent cognitive function decline."
Journal Reference:
Ruiyuan Zhang, Luqi Shen, Toni Miles, et al. Association of Low to Moderate Alcohol Drinking With Cognitive Functions in US Adults [open], JAMA Network Open (DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.7922)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:14PM (29 children)
Muslims (at least the ones who follow the precepts of Mohammed) don't drink, yet when they reach age 80 most of them are still sharp enough to plan a terrorist attack.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:16PM (27 children)
Who tells you they don't secretly drink?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:31PM (26 children)
The Iranian engineer I worked with in a previous job loved a drink.
According to her Tehran is awash with booze and always has been. The Islamist authorities turn a blind eye, but crack down on anyone who gets too open about it.
She also told me that the Islamic government would be overthrown tomorrow if they really made an effort to get rid of booze, and they know it.
Iran sounds interesting.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:40PM (6 children)
That's part of the problem with Islam. Few muslims follow the teachings closely and Mohamed was clear that the only sure way to reach paradise was to die as a martyr in jihad. Now imagine growing up believing that message and hitting a low point in your life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Friday July 03 2020, @12:14AM (4 children)
Sounds like every fundamentalist Christian I ever met.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @12:55AM (2 children)
To paraphrase a Bill Hicks skit: "Follow your teachings or burn in hell for eternity? Well thank you God... for all those... options!"
My original comment is true (not a "troll") and the reason we get the Pulse nightclub shooter and suicide bombers who drank.
So Mohammed doesn't know if he will make it to Jannah but there's one sure way other muslims can get there. Jihad (struggle) becomes qital (killing) in other passages with the suicide passage in Sura 3:143 - "Before you encountered death, you were hoping for it".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @08:37AM (1 child)
Kind of like the mafia saying - I've got a deal you can't refuse.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by coolgopher on Friday July 03 2020, @02:07PM
See Stargate with the Ori.
I'm with O'Neill on this topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2020, @08:24PM
There are big differences. If lots of Christians followed Jesus's example they would be dying non-violently as martyrs. If lots of Muslims followed Muhammad's example they would be marrying many wives, some of them 6 or 9 year olds, and fighting many wars.
If you look at what the early Muslims were doing, it's far closer to what the ISIS and Taliban are doing than what the more peaceable "Muslims" are doing. So unlike the Christian Reformation a reformation of Islam to its roots won't make them more peaceful.
Fundamentalist Christians believe they are saved - they have assurance of salvation. So they don't need to go around killing non-Christians to get to heaven. In fact, logically speaking if the goal is getting more people to heaven, Christians are more expendable than non-Christians. It's clear many US people who call themselves Christians aren't following what their religion says or Jesus asks them to do[1].
In Islam. Muslims don't have assurance of getting to heaven and there are certain things they can do to increase their chances. Go figure.
Islam is definitely not a "turn the other cheek" religion[2]. And there are many verses that emergently encourage violence[3].
[1] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jaysondbradley/2020/05/how-a-plague-exposed-the-christian-nation-myth/ [patheos.com]
[2] A man once asked the Prophet (peace be upon him), “O Prophet of Allah, what about if a man came to me asking for my money (meaning to take it by force)?” The Prophet said, “Don’t give him your money.” So the man said, “What if he fights me?” The Prophet said, “Fight him (back).” The man asked, “What if he kills me?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “Then you are a martyr.” (Sahih Muslim)
The Prophet (peace be upon him) also said, “Whoever is killed defending himself is a martyr, whoever is killed defending his family is a martyr, whoever is killed defending his property is a martyr.” (At-Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud)
[3] https://answeringislam.org/authors/silas/islam_hates_you.html [answeringislam.org]
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Friday July 03 2020, @09:25AM
So why haven't they all sacrificed themselves yet?
Right...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:40PM (8 children)
Look at some footage of Iran in the70s. They were chevy-driving, bikini-clad-sun-tanning, Aryan hedonists.
Iranians are different from desert dwelling Saudi Arabs. For that matter, Iraqis, their Arab neighbors to the west, are/were quite different from the desert dwelling Saudis.
And then there are the Lebanese - they think they are Europeans, and they are not wrong.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:46PM
Arabs own the magic rock so the other muzzies have to put up with them, even though they give the religion a bad name. If all Muslims were Iranian the world would be a much better place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:53PM (5 children)
Yeah, Persians I know are more Rita Panahi than Ali Khamenei, however, when we look at pictures from the '70s and see a forward looking society we overlook that the religious loons were demographically significant to have instituted and held theocratic power for so long.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:59PM (1 child)
Pahlevi regime was pretty damn corrupt, and the resistance found its focus thru their version of Islam - sorta "back-to-basics" ideology, given that it's the "West" - i.e., UK/BP/CIA - that overthrew Mossadeq regime.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Friday July 03 2020, @12:32AM
The Pahlavi regime was incredibly corrupt, and vicious which is why it enjoyed almost no public support by the end.
The people who really pushed the Iranian Revolution early on were actually pretty liberal students, but the Ayatollah Khomeini was a leader everyone could get behind, and he purged the movement of the more liberal groups once it was clear the Shah was not coming back, which is a real shame.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @04:16AM (2 children)
You need better friends. :)
Alt-right Liberal-apologist ambulance chasing Trumpian loony troll in the service of Uncle Rupert.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @04:29PM (1 child)
^ Communist identified. How does it feel to support an authoritarian ideology responsible for 100,000,000 deaths and believe you have a right to call other people names?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @11:29PM
The 'Liberal party' of Australia, i.e. the kleptocrats in government. Panahi is nothing more than a socket puppet of Canberra.
I support nobody.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @02:18PM
My in-laws are Persian and particularly because they're Zoroastrians rather than Muslims, they really do not like what the Ayatollah has done to the country. My wife regularly suggests that she wants the US to change the regime. I keep reminding her that the Ayatollah is there in large part because the US tried to change the regime there by reinstating the Shah over the ruler that they had chosen, but she still wants us to do it. Personally, I have no reason to believe that us doing it would be any better than in other countries where we've engaged in regime change.
And yeah, back before the revolution, the country was pretty liberal and yes, Persians don't necessarily like Arabs as they're completely different groups of people with different cultural values and beliefs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday July 03 2020, @12:23AM (2 children)
Doesn't surprise me at all that the descendants of the old Persian empire let the Islam flow over them with reduced permeation to the root of their culture.
Even the arabs had a "culture of indulgence", one can find quite a number of references of drinking wine (in private) in the Arabian nights [wikipedia.org] - see also Abu Nuwas [wikipedia.org] and his khamriyyat [stanford.edu].
The hard stance against fermented drinks in Islam practicing world seems to have come into being after the great Abbasid civil war [wikipedia.org]. Even that is not quite a clear cut [wikipedia.org] as Quran seems to literally ban only grape and dates wine and "praying under influence".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Friday July 03 2020, @12:39AM (1 child)
I am good friends with a nurse who worked in Saudi for a couple of years and according to her, the moment the plane to London is out of Saudi airspace, the women on board line up at the toilets to change out of their hijabs, and the men all start drinking.
I don't think anyone really listens to priests.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @05:19PM
That's not really a surprise, when you live in a country where the state enforces religious practices with severe punishment for those violating them. Many of those folks wouldn't be Muslim at all or would be a member of a more liberal sect if the state wasn't literally enforcing the restrictions.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tokolosh on Friday July 03 2020, @02:33AM (3 children)
Sounds like the US and marijuana.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday July 03 2020, @02:47AM (2 children)
My country is going to have a referendum on pot at our next election.
Guess who is funding the "no" campaign?
Did you guess the Scientologists? Because it's the Scientologists. Weird.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @03:13AM (1 child)
Are the scientologists a large enough group to have political influence?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @03:45PM
Given the way they charge money to advance in the church, they're quite rich for their size, which amplifies their influence. Not to mention they've got a fair number of high-status people enmeshed in their ranks. Celebrities seem atypically vulnerable to their balderdash for some reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @12:13PM
"Iran sounds interesting."
Religion and drinking seem to have such a truce in many places.
Perhaps this is common ground among reasonable folks in a world of otherwise.
Old classics:
In the South, how do you tell the difference between a Methodist and a Baptist?
The bootlegger comes to the front door for the Methodist.
How do you keep a Mormon from drinking all your beer?
Bring another Mormon.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 03 2020, @12:45PM
Most of the U.S. seems to have tipped its hand during the pandemic, this is also true here - liquor stores have been 100% essential never closed businesses. Even social bars were among the first to reopen (and now be re-closed) when the powers that be decided to let COVID run amok.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @01:19PM
That's not terribly surprising, you saw the same sort of thing in the US during prohibition. I've heard the same thing about Saudi Arabia, there's definitely access, it's just that if you get caught by the authorities, the consequences are severe.
I don't personally mind that they continue to study the effects of alcohol, but it's rather irresponsible the way the studies are covered. Any upsides to drinking alcoholic beverages are outweighed by the negative health consequences. Yes, having the occasional drink is unlikely to have a noticeable impact on your health, nor is getting drunk a few times a years, but alcohol is a carcinogen and a toxin, it gets removed from the body preferentially to other things that you consume as a result.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @01:01AM
"... yet when they reach age 80 most of them are still sharp enough to plan a terrorist attack"
Unfortunately for that unproven theory a terrorist attack tends to result in death. So if they hit 80 then they are HIGHLY UNLIKELY to be a terrorist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:16PM (5 children)
Yep, smarter people drink more. It's a way to adapt to a world in which everybody else is dumb, so it puts you more on their level at the end of the day when a smart person wants to relax but watching X-Men 12 or woke bullshit on Disney ESPN is just too painful to endure with the brain running full-speed.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday July 03 2020, @01:17AM (4 children)
it says "light" drinking, and does not correlate "more" with "smarter", nor does it explore what else was happening in the non-drinker diets and environments, only finding a correlation.
Also worth noting that 10 to 14 drinks over a week is very different to 10 to 14 in one session.
So there you go, Eth - there may be an opportunity for you to sign up for a study into "the mechanisms underlying the association between alcohol drinking and cognition in middle-aged or older adults"
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 03 2020, @01:29AM (3 children)
Fuck off, you Jewish Niggers. We hate you.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @02:37AM
Geez dude, lighten up on the sauce. Usually you lead off with an interesting sentence or two before you get into the trolling.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday July 03 2020, @02:53AM
Who is this "we"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @02:56AM
Those are gang members, not Jews.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:27PM (6 children)
After 60 is makes sense to start smoking to help cognitive capacity. It was very well known by native Americans who smoke only after making the elders council. They had the same attitude to drinking.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:35PM (1 child)
Indians who wait until age 60 to drink? They sure don't make 'em like they used to,
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2020, @11:42PM
I too was born with the wisdom of the elders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @12:03AM (1 child)
Smoke? Use the nicotine patch like Sherlock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @12:08AM
Things go better with coke [conandoyleinfo.com]
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday July 03 2020, @02:23AM (1 child)
Just to stop joking https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/study-finds-nicotine-safe-helps-in-alzheimers-parkinsons/2175396/ [tampabay.com]
As per patch vs actual smoke, cancer is not gonna have enough time to kill a smoker who started at 60 but smoking is way more enjoyable. Just don't do it earlier, kids. Indians never let youngsters smoke, trust them.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @03:00AM
Smoking was generally part of a ritual, but they also chewed and snorted tobacco, as well as making bonfires of it (to get rid of fleas etc.), eating it (to get rid of internal parasites), and a bunch of other stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @12:07AM (2 children)
According to this study that says there is no safe level of drinking https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180824103018.htm [sciencedaily.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 03 2020, @12:26AM
FTFY.
An advantage in my books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @01:24PM
That shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. The main reason why alcohol being drunk in moderation appears to have positive effects is because the studies frequently neglect to account for the fact that the non-drinking population has a significant portion of individuals with health problems, liver problems, recovered alcoholics. It's rather challenging to find people that mirror the drinking population that don't drink. Muslims and others that don't drink for other reasons often have other dietary restrictions that make it hard to compare them with the general population that doesn't have those same restrictions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Revek on Friday July 03 2020, @12:23AM (1 child)
Next up a new study shows just buying bottle of wine will kill you.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 03 2020, @12:29AM
Not mutually exclusive - if you so like, you could probably live longer in a state of a drooling vegetable.
Now, pass that rum bottle, will you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 03 2020, @12:32AM (2 children)
I should like to see a study that compares the effects of drinking wine with drinking fresh grape juice. Even better might be to eat grapes, as we now realize that juicing the fruit throws out an awful lot of good, healthy stuff.
Otherwise, why shouldn't I think this yet another advert for the alcoholic beverage industry? I suppose it is correct. What it lacks is completeness. Why, yes, drinking beer is healthier than drinking battery acid!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @02:04AM
There were studies that show that certain chemo drugs can kill senescent cells allowing the younger ones to proliferate in the space they take up.
Perhaps the effect is similar. Alcohol kills cells. Less productive senescent cells are more susceptible to it. So it kills the less productive cells allowing the more productive ones to proliferate in their space.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @08:56AM
Or does that entirely depend on what the corp paying for the "study" is selling?
That apart, juice drinking is a sure-fire way to unnoticeably load up a LOT of sugar; typical concentrations are around 10% - drink one liter, get 100 g of carbs. You get fat as a pig in no time from that kind of "good, healthy stuff".
(Score: 2) by Tokolosh on Friday July 03 2020, @02:37AM (1 child)
I really love science and would like nothing more than to further our knowledge. How can one go about getting selected to participate in these studies?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @02:57AM
You'd have to move in with EF, the bartender for said study.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @02:53AM
n/t
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @04:58AM (2 children)
First let's consider another series of studies, pretty similar to this one, that have recently been 'debunked'. There were a wide array of studies that showed that drinking a small amount was associated with better health outcomes on average. However what a recent study showed is that these studies did not effectively consider *why* people were no longer drinking. And a significant chunk of the reasoning there is related to declining health. And so when you look at those who do not drink, it gets biased by this group who chose to stop drinking because of health reasons. And our goofy social science studies then claim that light to moderate drinking is 'associated with' (which they always imply strongly is causation) better health outcomes.
Social science should not be called science, because in general it's not. If you can't *meaningfully* test things then you're not engaging in science. So for instance if you want to test this hypothesis what you do is simple: you take 1000 people who have never drunk and force them to start drinking, take 1000 people and force them not to drink, and take 1000 people and let them do whatever. Let it cook for about 50 years and then compare and derive conclusions. Of course the problem is obvious: such an experiment is impossible in general. And so the social sciences on sampling of groups who voluntarily engage in the desired action, but that is inherently biasing. And more importantly, there's simply no good way to overcome these biases. Imagine you exclude those who stopped drinking for health related reasons - well you've suddenly just artificially improved the health of non-drinkers because some of them may not be drinking for health reasons but ones that have nothing to do with alcohol itself. E.g. - somebody is taking some sort of medicine that interacts poorly with alcohol.
And in this study there's similar easy to see biases. Strong religious beliefs are correlated with people not drinking. They're also correlated with lower intelligence. So what are you going to do, simply exclude all religious people from your study? Now you have a new bias. And so forth and so on. If we had any sense at all we'd tear down the social sciences because bad misleading information is likely much worse than no information at all. Some people will see this study and go 'omg, time to start downing a couple of 6 packs each week'. When in reality it's likely that the only thing they'll see happen there is the rapid deterioration of their own body.
And yes, I realize this paper adds a cautionary 'it's hard to say if this effect is causal' but few really appreciate that this does translate into proper English more likely, 'We've got no fucking clue if this means anything and it probably doesn't - but we need to get published, so LOL.'
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @05:16AM
Come to think of it further perhaps some people who never drank have never done so exactly because they already have health problems and they are afraid that alcohol could make their health problems even worse. That alone can bias your results.
Thanks for this post. Insightful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @01:28PM
Definitely and even then, if you follow these things the research goes back and forth over it.
Really, a few drinks now and then is unlikely to cause much damage, but alcohol is poison and you're putting additional stress on the organs that are intended to filter toxins out of your body when you do it. Personally, I've got a mild liver condition and prefer to take it easy on my liver when possible, even though it's not medically necessary. I have no particular way of knowing what might happen in the future and I just don't have a liver that works as efficiently as it should.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2020, @06:22AM
If you're smart and not subject to cognitive decline, the older you get the more you realize how rotten it's all going. So you drink.
(Score: 2) by cosurgi on Friday July 03 2020, @04:16PM
I’m sorry, that claim is just false. You only need to check how much research funding was given from the alcohol industry. They pay billions to researches so that they find just one positive effect of drinking. Then they make outrageous claims about how healthy drinking is. Then even skew the research results from honest researches who just wanted to know for a fact what the real effect was.
#
#\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
#
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday July 03 2020, @08:01PM
Photons are tasteless.
Account abandoned.