Alcohol Prevents Death From Brain Injury? I'll Drink to That
Finally, in keeping with the spirit of the season, Canadian researchers reported that alcohol may protect the head as well as the heart by reducing the risk of death from a hard blow to the head.
They looked at blood alcohol levels in patients with severe traumatic brain injury following blunt head trauma, and found that those with low-to-moderate levels had a lower risk of dying compared with those with either no alcohol in the blood or too much.
"Overall, people are still at much greater risk of dying if they drive while intoxicated," wrote Homer C. N. Tien, M.D., of the University of Toronto, and colleagues in other Canadian centers, in the December issue of Archives of Surgery. "What our study implies is that there may be a role for an alcohol-based resuscitation fluid in improving outcomes in adequately resuscitated patients with severe head injury."
