Trevor Butterworth
Over on Scientific American’s 60 Second Science, STATS’ Maia Szalavitz looks at a recent op-ed in the New York Times by psychiatrist Paul Steinberg, who claims that studies of rats reveal “significant though often subtle” impairment to cognitive function after binging on alcohol.
Leaving aside just what it means for something cognitive to be subtle and significant at the same time (if it’s elusive and difficult to grasp how could we determine whether it was significant?) Szalavitz hones in on the a significant and not-at-all subtle problem with the thesis. The studies on rats involved looking at the consequence of one four-day binge. As Szalavitz notes,
“If single binges caused similar damage in humans, nearly half of us would be brain-damaged before we graduated from college.”
What do human studies show? Well, one study on elderly abstinent alcoholics found no cognitive differences between them and normal controls.”
Lest it be said that STATS is soft on binge drinking, it behooves us to point out that looking for long term cognitive impairment sort of misses the problem with binge drinking: immediate, debilitating cognitive impairment. In London, a record for alcohol-related emergency calls this New Year’s Eve led to one ambulance dispatch every eight seconds.
Posted by Trevor Butterworth 