Home – Salk News – AI chatbot ChatGPT mirrors its users to appear intelligent Salk neuroscientist explores how artificial intelligence language models, like the popular ChatGPT chatbot, can further our understanding of the human brain LA JOLLA—The artificial intelligence language model ChatGPT has captured the world’s attention in recent months.

A 2022 study published in Scientific Reports aimed to clarify the risks and benefits associated with modest drinking, defined as drinking no more than one alcoholic beverage a day. Researchers from Oxford Population Health conducted the first-ever genetic study on the association between alcohol consumption and telomere length, a potential biological aging marker. According to the most recent study’s results published in Molecular Psychiatry, there was a significant association between high alcohol intake and shorter leucocyte telomere length.

In general, it starts with damage to brain cells. What, then, causes brain cell damage that leads to dementia? A grain of salt: These studies were observational — the researchers for both studies used data from medical records and surveys. This means the researchers can’t prove that eating red meat causes dementia, because they had no control over the participants’ diets or lifestyle. A 2013 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that high blood sugar levels may increase the risk of dementia.

Excessive alcohol consumption is particularly dangerous for older people for a number of reasons, firstly because our bodies find it harder to process alcohol as we age. “One reason for this is having more body fat, which is less able to break down alcohol and the effects of alcohol can stay for longer in our systems,” Keenan explains. It can also increase anxiety and depression: “Sometimes people can get caught in a cycle where they are drinking to alleviate these issues but only making them worse in the long run,” she adds.

Another study, published in July 2022 in the journal The Lancet, found that people under 40 should avoid alcohol because of the risks that come along with drinking. Cutting back on alcohol has been shown to help lower your risk for several chronic diseases. The CDC defines “moderate” as no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men.

Alcohol influences telomere length and accelerates biological ageing according to a genetic-based study... Blood samples were used to determine telomere length and were compared to self-reported weekly alcohol consumption from participants in an observational assessment. This assessment showed that people with a high alcohol intake had shorter telomere lengths, which is equivalent to one or two years of age-related change compared to those who drank less than six units of alcohol a week.

To better understand alcohol’s effect on telomere length, Topiwala and her colleagues analysed 245,354 participants – aged 40 to 69 – of the UK Biobank study, which holds medical and genetic information on half a million people. The team devised a genetic risk score based on these variants and found that the participants with a higher genetic risk score for increased alcohol consumption were more likely to have shorter telomeres.

Drinking more than 17 units — which is equal to about five large glasses of wine or eight pints of beer — in a week could damage your DNA and speed up the aging process, according to a new study. Drinking alcohol in excess can negatively impact DNA by causing damage to telomeres, which could eventually lead to those age-related diseases. The top 40% of drinkers — those who consumed more than 17 units a week — had shorter telomere length caused by drinking alcohol. “Furthermore, the dose of alcohol is important — even reducing drinking could have benefits.”

Someone who drinks 32 units per week, or about 10 large glasses of 13% alcohol by by volume wine, is biologically three years older than someone on 10 units a week, roughly three large glasses of wine, for example. But the research found no link between alcohol consumption and biological ageing below the 17-unit threshold, with someone having one whisky a week as unaffected as someone who has a glass of wine every week night. MR analyses suggested a causal relationship between alcohol traits, more strongly for AUD, and telomere length.

Telomere length is linked to biological aging and disease onset. Observational analysis findings indicated that heavy alcohol drinkers and those with alcohol use disorder were significantly more likely to have shorter telomeres — an essential part of our chromosomes linked to aging and the onset of various health concerns. Meanwhile, the MR analysis also found a strong link between telomere length and genetically-predicted AUD.