Alcohol shrinks brain & no stroke benefits

Sydney · 2003-12-06T07:14:16+00:00

Alcohol shrinks brain & no stroke benefitsAn interesting study found that low to moderate drinking may cause a loss ofbrain tissue in middle-age people. The researchers also found that suchalcohol consumption does not lower the risk of a stroke, contradictingfindings from previous studies:So much for my daily glass of wine. :-(-- Sydney

Dec 06, 2003 24 Replies

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Myo Cardium 22 years ago

The "publish or perish" phenomena is more applicable to the physical, biological, and chemical sciences and not really applicable to the medical sciences.

You would be surprised at the amount of medical (bench and clinical) research that is done that never finds it's way to a paper or that takes several years (3, 4, even 5 years) between data acquisition and paper submission.

Quite a bit of medical research is, naturally, conducted by MD's who usually have clinical responsibilities and thus are really not in a position to "perish" if they don't "publish".

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Ray 22 years ago

Don't fool yourself about this sort of stuff being "publish or perish". Dig deep enough and I bet you will find that this is funded research from some anti-alcohol group. Having been there I know that there is very little research by professors or graduate students that is not funded by some group who wants to prove a point.

As far as the moderation being the key, I agree with the concept of moderation 100% and carry it to an extreme. I am VERY careful to moderate my moderation!

Ray

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Paul Brandon 22 years ago

And since they have little or no research training (that's why med schools offer dual MD/PhD programs) much of that research is flawed, which is why it doesn't get published.

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Myo Cardium 22 years ago

If a proposed research project was really flawed then most likely it wouldn't get funded in the first place. The granting process tries to weed out flawed research before it happens.

Remember that there is a wide spectrum of medical research being performed. The media mostly focuses on clinical and epidemiological research (you know, stuff like this food or that food is good/bad for you, this or that behavior is good/bad for you, etc). You don't hear a lot about the findings from bench or physiological or pharmacological or device research (over the heads of most people).

Of course you hear little to nothing about the increasing amount of research being done by academic labs that are paid for and directed by pharma and device companies (large companies as well as small start-ups). Data generated from those studies are used to support FDA submissions as well as help attract VC financing.

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