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Drinking Beer Improves Your Memory

Posted: Sep 27th 2007 12:39PM by Jonathon Morgan
Filed under: General Health

I don't know about you, but after a couple beers, I'm not exactly the sharpest tool in the box. However, recent research seems to suggest that beer is better for your brain than you might think -- as low to moderate alcohol consumption apparently enhances your memory.

The science behind why this is true isn't exactly easy to follow -- but, essentially, consuming alcohol reportedly enhances activity in one part of a receptor that's located in an area of the brain that's critical to memory. So, when researchers gave alcohol to rats (about the equivalent of one or two drinks per day for a human, depending on your size), they discovered that the rats performed better in memory testing.

Which means, says one scientist, that even though people often drink to "drown sorrows," consuming alcohol "could actually paradoxically promote traumatic memories." Bummer.

On the other hand, I guess this also means that if you're having a couple pleasant drinks every afternoon, you're going to be a little more on the ball than if you went teetotal. This is such great news, I think I'm going to go celebrate -- with a beer!

Thanks to Scott for the tip!

Tags: alcohol, beer, drinking, memory, mental health, MentalHealth

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