• Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Alcohol doesn’t actually kill brain cells. It causes short and long term damage to your brain in other ways, as it is a neurotoxin. But the brain cells thing is a myth put forward by puritans because they’re idiots that don’t understand that you don’t have to lie constantly to get your point across.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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      8 months ago

      It does… That’s what causes the brain to shrink in alcoholics. Because it’s a neurotoxin? You admit it yourself, weird take.

      The thing is the “myth” was “debunked” for a while because medical science thought brain cells couldn’t be replaced, because they couldn’t identify the replacement mechanism. If alcohol just killed brain cells outright brain death would happen pretty quickly compared to cirrhosis.

      The problem with that idea is it’s just wrong. Modern studies proved that not only can brain cells be replaced, it happens frequently, as part of normal bodily functions.

      Of course, because it is normal, casual drinkers don’t really need to worry about it, and it’s really only a problem if you’re regularly getting blackout drunk. Only severe alcoholics are going to actually run into health problems in that regard, and even then their liver is almost guaranteed to fail first.

      • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/49024/does-drinking-alcohol-kill-brain-cells

        “When this alcohol reaches the brain, it doesn’t kill the cells. What it does is inhibit the communication between dendrites, or branching connections at the ends of neurons that send and receive information between neurons, in the cerebellum, a part of the brain involved in motor coordination. This poor communication results in some of the typical impairments of intoxication. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that alcohol, even when applied directly to neurons, didn’t kill them. It just interfered with the way they transmit information. Specifically, the researchers showed that alcohol causes certain receptors on neurons to manufacture steroids that inhibit memory formation. “

        Nothing I said was incorrect as far as I can tell.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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          8 months ago

          https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/this-is-your-brain-on-alcohol-2017071412000

          The body is a funny thing. You don’t need to kill a cell directly to cause cellular death, you can, for example, impair cellular fluid replenishment, short circuit repair functions, prevent replication, cause DNA damage that triggers immune responses, etc.

          Now, one of the problems with these studies is you can’t do brain biopsies on living subjects because of, you know, medical ethics, so it’s always possible the shrinkage is a result of fluid loss that just happens to impair memory as well, so the cells are technically alive, but useless.

          You very well might be correct that alcohol doesn’t directly kill brain cells, but I think you should ask yourself whether being correct on the technicalities is worth more than being correct on the results in this matter.

          There simply is not a safe amount of alcohol to consume for brain health.

          That’s why you should switch to LSD instead.

          • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I also wasn’t trying to say alcoholism is healthy anywhere, in fact I was saying the opposite. I don’t understand why you’re coming at me right now.

            But I’d be fine with switching to LSD as the social norm no problem, it’s more fun anyway. It’s just hard to find 12 hours to be high for haha

      • General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        As somebody who used to be a functional alcoholic, here’s how I like to put it to people simply: The brain doesn’t operate independently of the body. If you’re consuming something that negatively affects systems across the entire body, even if the short term effects on the brain aren’t as severe as those other parts, it will still end up affected. If you’re a drinker and you’re noticing long-term effects in your brain, you’ve likely by that point already done much more severe damage to your other internal organs. That damage affects your brain’s ability to take care of itself, among other things. Let’s just say it’s best to not let things get to that point.

        • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          That’s a good point too. Alcohol damages your body. This is undisputed fact. I get annoyed though with guys like this who tell easily verifiable lies and then starts telling people “YOU’RE STUPID BECAUSE YOU DRINK” and being a dumbass about it. Enjoying drinking in moderation doesn’t make you stupid or irresponsible, this guy fuck all the way off with that shit.

      • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Nobody drinks because it’s good for them. Nobody thinks or pretends it’s good for them. And it’s actually fine if you do it in moderation.

        This kind of weird holier than thou fear mongering about substances is why we have the war on drugs now. It irritates me.

        • proudblond@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I mean… for a while there, my parents drank red wine every night because people said there were health benefits. I think it’s been mostly debunked now (or at least any benefit is counteracted by the downsides) but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a significant portion of the population who either didn’t get the memo, or did and choose to believe what they want to believe.

          • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Haha I remember my mom going through that phase. I would always just laugh and think to myself “I don’t care if you like to get a buzz on at dinner mom. You don’t have to pretend it’s for your health.”

          • The_v@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            The studies have shown it’s not specifically red wine that has health benefits. It’s the alcohol when dosed correctly.

            Like most drugs, the dosage really matters. Health effects with alcohol follow a J shaped curve. It starts with an initial health benefit, followed by negative health effects as the dosage increases.

            1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks for men is the absolute maximum limit for health benefits. Any more is overdosing and causing harm.

            Overdosing causes deaths every year from both from chronic usage (alcoholism) and acute usage (alcohol poisoning).

        • tygerprints@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          But drinking IS good for you and it DOES heal the body and give people superpowers. I’m all for people drinking themselves into a stupor because they will feel SO, so good from it. I really do encourage it and all the drug abuse that is humanly possible, it makes me feel good to see it, and I truly do support it all.

          • Maalus@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Why the fuck are you being sarcastic after spreading bullshit and then being called out by other people?

          • Cruxifux@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            You were spreading misinformation and are now behaving like a huge jackass when corrected. I wonder, what makes you think this is a good look for yourself to be presenting online? What do you get from making people think you’re a dumb asshole? Is it a trolling thing? Because I often feel like that trolling mentality places way more belief in the distress you’re causing others over the actual reality of the thing, which is that people don’t actually give a shit about strangers on the internet, by and large. Is it a shame kink/masochism thing? What’s the point?

            • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Griefer. It’s a tool of the powerless to make themselves feel important. The more people respond to them the more important they feel.

              Some of them go bat shit crazy when they’re insulted. It ruins their whole day and they become more unhinged. Some thrive on that but when proven wrong on something they’re smarmily sure about they get unhinged and will try to accuse others of building straw men in roundabout (and in this case sarcastic) ways because they’re afraid they’ll lose. As long as they can keep people interacting they feel like winners.

              Edit: As always, the best way to deal with a troll is to downvote and block. Remember, they don’t have to be smarter than you. They just need to get a rise out of you and then they’ll keep doing it.

              Lemmy is a relatively small place. If you let them, people like this will overrun the whole thing then piss and moan because the community just isn’t the same. Do not engage.

          • Vincent Adultman@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            even if people drink their brains out you would still be gapped in any kind of intelectual and cognitive activity. It shows in your comments, it shows… Please refrain from drinking.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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        8 months ago

        The problem with encouraging alcoholism as a population filter is it doesn’t tend to improve the actual health of the gene pool, as alcoholics are great at the breeding part.