Binge Drinking Increases Risk of Dementia

While a little wine may help you live longer, heavy alcohol consumption increases the risk of dementia later in life, especially for women.

Heavy drinking may be to blame for one in four cases of dementia. Doctors have linked alcohol intake to the development of the brain-wasting condition in between 10 and 24% of the estimated 700,000 people in the UK with the disease.

They warn that binge drinking and increased consumption are likely to produce an epidemic of alcohol-related brain damage in the future, which could see drinkers starting to experience serious memory problems in their 40s.

Women who drink a lot are at much greater risk than men of suffering problems with their cognitive functions, because they are physiologically less well able to cope with alcohol's effects. Read more