Does alcohol shrink your brain?

If you're looking for a reason to quit drinking, said Anna Boyd in eFluxMedia, try this—alcohol can shrink your brain. Our brains decrease in size by about 2 percent per decade as it is, but a new study by researchers at Wellesley College found that regular drinking can speed up the loss of brain volume.

"Say it isn't so," said The Denver Post in an editorial. Just when we were all set to toast reports on the health benefits of red wine—and a new University of Connecticut report that white wine is good for the heart, too. The contradictory messages from the "blizzard of studies" on drinking is "befuddling."

"Before you throw out your martini glass," said Jennifer Huget in The Washington Post online, "it's important to note a few caveats." Most importantly, the Wellesley report didn't say anything about whether brain shrinkage hurts "actual brain function." So if you do choose to continue having a drink now and then, enjoy it. "Isn't that what life is all about?"

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