Drinking and dementia
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Recent research suggests that the consequences of drinking large amounts of alcohol may extend to long-term dementia.
It’s already known that alcohol ‘kills’ brain cells but a report in the British Journal of Psychiatry (November 2008) goes further by claiming that binge drinking increases the risk of dementia.
Since the 1960s the amount of alcohol we consume has almost doubled and researchers are concerned that that young and middle-aged people drink twice as much as the 700,000 people in the UK with dementia today.
Because of the long period between youthful excessive drinking and the onset of dementia it’s feared that public health messages will be ignored.
Small amounts of alcohol are not thought to be dangerous and may even have a protective effect.
3rd November 2008
