Remember when we found out drinking a glass of red wine every day was good for your heart, so we went out, bought a box of Franzia with our roommates and blacked out? Well, bring on the Andre, because recent studies have shown that drinking champagne can help to prevent against Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and generally improve your memory. Weird. Drinking usually has the adverse effect on my memory.
Realizing it contained the beneficial compound phenolic acid, professor Jeremy Spencer and his team of biochemists experimented with champagne in lab rats at Reading University. The rats’ memories were observed as they ran a maze, and after five minutes, ran it again. A control group was able to do so with a 50% success rate while the experimental group, that had received droplets of champagne in its food for six weeks, was able to do so with a 70% success rate. The rats in the experimental group were found to have had a 200% increase of the proteins responsible for determining effective memory in just six weeks.
Sixty participants have now been asked to drink champagne about three times a week for three years, in hopes that there will be similar results for people. This always gives me terrible Flowers For Algernon flashbacks, but even if there are catastrophic side effects, at least they got to drink regularly under the guise of “scientific experimentation,” am I right? There is still much research to be done, but the team feels hopeful, advising people at-risk for degenerative brain diseases to start drinking now:
“It is a gradual decline and so the earlier people take these beneficial compounds in champagne, the better.”
The recommendation is two or three glasses per week for people 40 and older, but imagine what kinds of super memories we’d develop if we started drinking three glasses per night, like, now. Instead of spending hours in the library on Pinterest, occasionally glancing at your notes, you can just chug some champagne before class and retain the entire lecture. If you meet a guy who tickles your fancy, just be sure to switch from vodka to champagne before going home with him, and you’ll surely remember his name in the morning. Rather than spending hours memorizing random facts about PNMs you will probably never see again, just get champagne drunk before open house, and you’ll be recruitment ready. Other than the potential wrath of your recruitment chair, I see no negative side effects, even if that’s not how these findings were intended to be used. Bottoms up.
[via Metro]
Image via listofimages.com
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Veronica Ruckh
Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at [email protected]
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