Saturday, February 10, 2018

Drinking Alcohol in Moderation Can Clear Brain Waste

     It always seems to come back to the old adage, a little is great, but a lot can ruin you.  Like so many other things in this world anything in moderation can be a benefit.  I’ve always felt that alcohol has always been believed to have medicinal value, but overdoing it can kill you.

     If you're partial to a drink or two, you will love the results of a recent study; researchers have found that a "low" intake of alcohol may help to cleanse the brain.  In a mouse study, scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) in New York found that drinking the equivalent to around 2.5 alcoholic drinks per day could reduce brain inflammation.  It was also found to increase the function of the glymphatic system, which is responsible for removing waste products from the brain.  High alcohol exposure, however, was found to impair glymphatic function and increase brain inflammation.

     Lead study author Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at URMC, and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Scientific Reports.  It should come as no surprise that excess alcohol intake can harm health. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) report that alcohol is a contributor to "more than 200 health conditions" and causes around 3.3 million deaths across the globe each year.  Increasingly, however, research has suggested that a little alcohol may do us good.