CNN carries important story - EVEN Light WINE drinking is linked with brain shrinking. So STUPID DRUNK is a redundancy. Research also discounts alcohol's stroke prevention benefits! Wahhhhhhhhhh!

DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- Low to moderate drinking may cause a loss of brain
tissue in middle-age people, a study found.

The researchers also found that such alcohol consumption does not lower
the risk of a stroke -- contradicting findings from previous studies.

"I think this is an interesting study because people talk about the
beneficial effects of alcohol intake on cardiovascular disease and they
try to extend that to stroke," said the study's lead researcher, Dr.
Jingzhong Ding, a research associate at the Bloomberg School of Public
Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "Some studies find beneficial effects, but ours didn't."

Heavy drinking is known to raise the risk of both brain atrophy and
stroke, but findings on the effects of low to moderate drinking have
varied.

The new study appears in Friday's issue of the American Heart
Association journal Stroke.

It moves doctors a step closer to understanding what amounts of alcohol
are harmful, said Dr. Edgar J. Kenton III, a professor of clinical
neurology at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Ding and his colleagues evaluated 1,909 patients, ages 55 and older,
from North Carolina and Mississippi who were participants in a study on
the buildup of plaque in the arteries. Researchers used information
collected between 1987 and 1989 and followed up every three years until 1995.

Using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRIs, researchers measured the
patients' ventricular and sulcal areas -- voids of the brain containing
only cerebrospinal fluid. Increased ventricular and sulcal size
indicates a reduction in brain tissue, or atrophy.

The findings showed that both voids grew larger the more people drank.

The thing is, one forgets to worry

Researchers cannot make a definitive cause-and-effect link
between drinking and brain atrophy because the MRIs were done only once
during the study and because they found only a small reduction in
tissue." found online.

Sigh. I think very fondly of really fine vintage red wines --the kind that explode with
fruitiness in the mouth. In a shop I always wonder which are the ambrosia vintages
hitting one is like hitting a vein of gold. VINTAGE IS EVERYTHING with REDS! Oh Oh. I sound like a drinker don't I.

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