14 DAY TRIAL // Last week, a team of researchers announced that, according to their investigations, beer makes the arteries more flexible and thus improves blood flow.
Unfortunately, one other team of scientists decided to rain on beer-lovers' parade by announcing that, as far as they can tell, this alcoholic beverage impairs brain function.
The University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain specialists maintain that just three pints of beer per week are more than enough to make one's brain roughly 20% slower.
Having a slower brain does not necessarily mean that a person is unable to perform various tasks.
However, it does mean that the brain needs to work harder to process whatever cues it receives from the outside world, The Inquisitr explains.
To document the effect of regular beer consumption on the human brain, the researchers monitored several students over a period of three years.
Some of these students were so-called binge drinkers (i.e. they drank approximately three pints of beer in one weekly sitting) and others seldom felt like grabbing a beer.
Although both these groups of students performed equally well on speed and accuracy tests, the brains of the ones who regularly drank beer had to work harder in order to complete various tasks, the scientists detail in their paper in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.
“Binge-drinking carries lots of risks in terms of the immediate safety of students, but also in terms of their future health and the likelihood of developing an alcohol problem later in life,” Emily Robinson, the current director of the campaign group Alcohol Concern reportedly told the press.
“This shows why we need to change the culture where it’s seen as the norm to drink excessively at university,” Emily Robinson further argued.
The University of Santiago de Compostela researchers suspect that other alcoholic beverages have the same effect on the brain when not consumed in moderation.
Hopefully, future studies will help shed more light on the link between these issues.