“As Little as 8 Alcoholic Drinks a Week Can Contribute to Dementia, Research Says”

Question

I used the People's website which tens to have bias and not generally a trustworthy source but I was able to find credible information and trustworthy sources within this topic. It is true that 8 drinks per week causes long term dementia and can really affect your health. They did research on people that drank alcohol consistently for years and found that alcohol caused lesions restricting blood flow and overall decreasing health. Everything was backed up by a scientific article showing that it is a fact.

https://people.com/as-little-as-8-alcoholic-drinks-a-week-can-contribute-to-dementia-research-says-11712922#:~:text=Per%20the%20study%2C%20published%20this,associated%20with%20diseases%20like%20Alzheimer's.

Answer 1

The sources linked in the article looked sound, additionally DementiaUK lists alcohol related brain damage under types of dementia. Another source to that here. In case it's relevant, Alzheimer's Association defines dementia as, "a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life".

Answer 2

I found this statement to be exaggerated. By tracing the claim back to its source I found that the evidence only proves short term applications. The study found that there is a link to heavy alcohol consumption and damaged brain blood vessels, but there was no evidence that backed up how long people were drinking for. This claim is partially true but there needs to be longer term studies in order to fully back this claim. I used the link in the peoples website to take me to a Science Daily Article [1], which contained the same information as the People's website. I then found the source of the information from The National Library of Medicine.

[1]: American Academy of Neurology. "Eight or more drinks per week linked to signs of injury in the brain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 April 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250409173113.htm>.

[2]: Justo, Alberto Fernando Oliveira et al. “Association Between Alcohol Consumption, Cognitive Abilities, and Neuropathologic Changes: A Population-Based Autopsy Study.” Neurology vol. 104,9 (2025): e213555. doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000213555

Answer 3

After reviewing your claim and the source provided (People Magazine), It seems that everything stated is true. The article from People derives its information from a study done by the American Academy of Neurology published by Science Daily. The Summary of the study states: “Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week have an increased risk of brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, signs of brain injury that are associated with memory and thinking problems, according to a new study.” Additional data support this suggests “ heavy drinkers had 133% higher odds of having vascular brain lesions compared to those who never drank, former heavy drinkers had 89% higher odds and moderate drinkers, 60%.” This study was done on over 1700 people through brain autopsies of elderly people who had passed away. Overall, based on this information, I think it’s safe to say this is true and this serves as a good reminder to keep things in moderation.

Comments

Do you have URL links for the source(s) you consulted for your fact-check? Thanks!

Answer 4

The article from People.com makes the claim that people who drink as little as 8 alcoholic drinks a week can contribute to dementia. Their information comes from sciencedaily.com which actually states that heavy drinkers (those who drink 8 or more alcoholic drinks a week) had a 41% higher chance of developing a biomarker associated with Alzheimer's. This statistic comes directly from the American Academy of Neurology and thus the claim is technically true as the increased biomarkers "can" contribute to dementia but overall the claim is exaggerated.

https://people.com/as-little-as-8-alcoholic-drinks-a-week-can-contribute-to-dementia-research-says-11712922#:~:text=Per%20the%20study%2C%20published%20this,associated%20with%20diseases%20like%20Alzheimer's.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250409173113.htm

https://www.aan.com/PressRoom/Home/PressRelease/5251

Answer 5

You have good information, but People is famously unreliable and they do not specialize in sharing scientific findings. This source is from the Alzheimer's Society, which is an official UK charity that does dementia research. It claims that even "drinking in moderation" is not protection against alcohol-induced dementia. Along with the issues with blood flow and overall health decreasing, alcohol consumption can cause you to lose white brain matter and it attacks the part of your brain related to memory. 

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia/alcohol

Answer 6

My suggestion for this claim is to trace the claim to the original research article. You mentioned there was a scientific article showing this, so you should check if the article cites studies from reputable journals. Trusted news outlets like The New York Times, BBC, Reuters, and scientific journals are better sources for health-related claims. If the article you're referring to cites scientific studies, check if those studies are published in peer-reviewed journals Having this creditability will make your statement stronger and by going through these steps, you can verify if the claim is valid and well-supported by scientific evidence.

Comments

Do you have links to the trusted news outlets you've mentioned? Thanks!

Answer 7

The actual People's article listed isn't a super trustworthy source, as you already said, but I agree with your assessment that the source within the article more credible because it is a Science Daily article. It is a relatively recent article as well (published on April 9th) which shows that it is fairly recent information, however that also means that there are not many other articles that corroborate their claims, which is important for this because Science Daily is not a peer reviewed source. But overall and with the info given, it seems fairly sound. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250409173113.htm

Answer 8

To say that the claim “as little as 8 drinks a week can contribute to dementia” is a fact based off of a single published study is difficult. Actually reading the study, which is titled "Association Between Alcohol Consumption, Cognitive Abilities, and Neuropathological Changes", I found that it doesn't directly examine a connection with dementia. Accordingly, results do not mention dementia and instead only declare a suggested connection between excessive drinking and cognitive declines. Regardless of results, it is unwise to make categorical conclusions based off of a single study as errors in data collection or sampling could be skewing results. Instead, to get an accurate idea of the validity of a scientific claim, one should consult a resource that holistically examines a multitude of studies investigating the issue at hand.

For example, the article “Alcohol and Dementia - What is the Link? A Systematic Review” published on the National Library of Medicine reviews a multitude of studies which examined Alcohol consumption and risk of dementia. The results of this article confirmed that high levels of alcohol consumption (defined as greater than 14 drink units per week) was linked to an increase in dementia risk. However, regarding alcohol consumption of less than 14 drinks per week, the study was not able to discover a direct link given the current scientific work.

In conclusion, I would label this as exaggerated/misleading. Current scientific evidence does suggest that alcohol consumption can lead to increased risk for dementia, however, only regarding drinking volume greater than 14 drinks per week, well above the 8 drink figure mentioned in the claim. Based off the current scientific evidence on this claim it would be incorrect to label it as categorically true. 

Sources:

Article linked in People.com article:

“Eight or more drinks per week linked to signs of injury in the brain.”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250409173113.htm 

Study discussed in linked article:

“Association Between Alcohol Consumption, Cognitive Abilities, and Neuropathological Changes”

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000213555 

Referenced article:

“Alcohol and Dementia - What is the Link? A Systematic Review”

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6957093/ 

Answer 9

I agree with this opinion. Even though many people believe that moderate drinking is harmless, it has been proven that consistent drinking can cause many health risks, including dementia. Alcohol has a major impact on memories, decision-making making and brain health overall. Though your source is not the most reliable found a resource that supports your claim. A study published in Neurology found that people who drink more than 8 drinks a week have a 133 percent higher risk of developing dementia. Even people who drink less have a 60 percent chance still to developing dementia. https://www.everydayhealth.com/neurological-disorders/heavy-and-moderate-drinking-can-harm-the-brain/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Comments

Is the Neurology study cited in the everdayhealth.com article? It's a great idea to check the source directly.

Answer 10

People is an entertainment publishing, and not generally trustworthy when it comes to health news. They do list a single source within this article, but it also contains multiple links to other People articles. The articles linked have titles like "I Knew I Needed to Lose Weight. My Shameful Secret Was Holding Me Back (Exclusive)", which are intentionally attention-grabbing. It's therefore reasonable to assume that the article in question has been similarly exaggerated in order to encourage traffic on the People website. The linked source does draw a connection between 8 or more alcoholic drinks per week and brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, which occur when blood flow to the brain is limited over an extended period of time. However, this connection is not one of causation, but correlation. The study itself was not able to prove that alcoholic drinks are the cause of these lesions. Another study on the relationship between alcohol use and brain injury notes that causation between the two can be difficult to determine, as alcohol abuse is often compounded by other factors such as psychiatric illness and abuse of other substances. While alcohol abuse can contribute to dementia and other similar disorders, it's difficult to determine whether alcohol itself might be a sole contributor to these issues.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250409173113.htm

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/alzrt157