Not so good news! However, often these studies do not distinguish between light/modest drinking of lower alcohol content drinks and heavy drinking including high alcohol content drinks. However, this study seems to focus on alcohol used disorder subjects.
The good news is that this study may suggests that some of the damage is reversible once one stops drinking alcohol. This is a little bit peculiar.
As usual, the popular science article seems to go beyond what the scientific study implies.
"... The large-scale genetic analysis suggests that alcohol consumption directly accelerates aging, by shortening telomeres. ...
In the new study, researchers from Oxford Population Health examined the association between alcohol intake and telomere length, using data from over 245,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank project. To investigate any potential causation, the team used a genetic technique known as Mendelian Randomization (MR), which looks at variations in certain genes – in this case, some that had previously been linked to alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorders. ...
In the MR analysis, the team found a clear link between high alcohol intake and shorter telomeres – drinking 32 units of alcohol (about 11 glasses of wine) per week showed telomere shortening equivalent to around three years of aging, compared to those who drank 10 units. People genetically predicted to have alcohol use disorder were also found to have about three years’ worth of aging damage to their telomeres. ...
The association seemed to only be significant for people drinking more than 17 units per week, suggesting that it takes at least a moderate level of alcohol consumption before the telomere damage kicks in. ...
the effects were only found in current drinkers, but not in participants who had never drank or had stopped drinking. ..."
In the new study, researchers from Oxford Population Health examined the association between alcohol intake and telomere length, using data from over 245,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank project. To investigate any potential causation, the team used a genetic technique known as Mendelian Randomization (MR), which looks at variations in certain genes – in this case, some that had previously been linked to alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorders. ...
In the MR analysis, the team found a clear link between high alcohol intake and shorter telomeres – drinking 32 units of alcohol (about 11 glasses of wine) per week showed telomere shortening equivalent to around three years of aging, compared to those who drank 10 units. People genetically predicted to have alcohol use disorder were also found to have about three years’ worth of aging damage to their telomeres. ...
The association seemed to only be significant for people drinking more than 17 units per week, suggesting that it takes at least a moderate level of alcohol consumption before the telomere damage kicks in. ...
the effects were only found in current drinkers, but not in participants who had never drank or had stopped drinking. ..."
From the abstract:
"Alcohol’s impact on telomere length, a proposed marker of biological aging, is unclear. We performed the largest observational study to date (in n = 245,354 UK Biobank participants) and compared findings with Mendelian randomization (MR) estimates. Two-sample MR used data from 472,174 participants in a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of telomere length. Genetic variants were selected on the basis of associations with alcohol consumption (n = 941,280) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) (n = 57,564 cases). Non-linear MR employed UK Biobank individual data. MR analyses suggested a causal relationship between alcohol traits, more strongly for AUD, and telomere length. Higher genetically-predicted AUD (inverse variance-weighted (IVW) β = −0.06, 95% confidence interval (CI): −0.10 to −0.02, p = 0.001) was associated with shorter telomere length. There was a weaker association with genetically-predicted alcoholic drinks weekly (IVW β = −0.07, CI: −0.14 to −0.01, p = 0.03). Results were consistent across methods and independent from smoking. Non-linear analyses indicated a potential threshold relationship between alcohol and telomere length. Our findings indicate that alcohol consumption may shorten telomere length. There are implications for age-related diseases."
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