I've been reading Why We Sleep, a really good and important book about sleep from a noted sleep research and professor of neuroscience Matthew Walker. Some of this intuitively makes sense based on his research.<p>Alcohol interfers with sleep, specifically the ability to remember information and to form new memories by harming and reducing REM sleep. This effect lasts for stuff you learned days earlier (read a book on Monday, get drunk on Wednesday night and you'll remember less than you would have otherwise). Alcohol and sleep don't mix. He recommends you drink earlier in the day (the closer to bed time the worse) and to not consume too much.<p>Based on this book, I largely no longer drink during the week after work (he also recommends not drinking caffeine much past noon). I've changed my habits, and am sleeping better.<p>Better sleep will make your mind sharper. It's not just the amount of sleep you are getting, however. Quality is really important. Alcohol interferes with our ability to sleep, specifically, REM sleep, and if you allow decades of daily interference with such a critical life system, I could see it leading to cognitive decline. Even if you don't get dementia, drinking alcohol too late in the day will cause cognitive issues.
This is specifically for "heavy drinking". In case folks are wondering how that's defined (per the study, computed based on volume of 60 g of ethanol), it's:<p>- 1.5 L of beer (at 5% ABV)<p>- 0.5 L of wine (at 14% ABV)
*Alcohol abuse is largest risk factor<p>> Most reviews point to a possible beneficial effect of light-to-moderate drinking on cognitive health... By contrast, heavy drinking seems detrimentally related to dementia risk, whatever the dementia type.
The scientific article states alcohol use disorder, not alcohol use.<p>The scientific article is about early onset dementia, not all dementia.<p>The scientific article uses a large sample size, but the entire population is French.<p>I would rewrite the title "Alcohol use disorder is the largest risk factor for early onset dementia in French population."
I don't like when titles obscure the actual findings. It should be Alcohol abuse largest risk factor for dementia. Its not just drinking alcohol, its drinking alcohol problematically.
The title doesn't seem accurate. The summary says:"Alcohol use disorders are the most important preventable risk factors... "<p>Furthermore, the article states:"This study looked specifically at the effect of alcohol use disorders, and included people who had been diagnosed with mental and behavioural disorders or chronic diseases that were attributable to chronic harmful use of alcohol."<p>So while I'm quite convinced that prolonged alcohol abuse has serious consequences, I don't think the claim that it is the single biggest risk factor of dementia across the population is supported by this study, as described by the article linked anyway.
The title should probably be changed. The study was looking at "chronic heavy drinking" and "Alcohol use disorders". Not "alcohol use" in general.
Of course, people who drink that much may have other issues that lead to said dementia, and alcohol use was a (poor) self-medication.<p>Then again, that is a lot of alcohol. Bound to have some negative effect.