"The take-home message is that, if you drink a lot, you're going to hurt your brain," said Rajesh Miranda, an associate professor of neuroscience and experimental therapeutics at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. "This is something we knew, but this is a huge study that quantifies that."
"It's not surprising that alcohol would cause shrinkage of the brain. That kind of thing has been observed in animal models and smaller studies," Miranda added. "The surprising thing is that they [the study authors] showed that even low levels of drinking are not protective, as people had seen in other cases."
The findings are published in the October issue of theArchives of Neurology.
Brain volume decreases naturally as people age, at a rate of about 1.9 percent per decade. At the same time, the brain acquires white matter lesions as it gets older. Both of these changes also accompany dementia and cognitive decline, according to background information in the study.
Moderate levels of alcohol consumption have been linked with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, leading researchers to hypothesize that restrained tippling might also slow declines in brain volume. Previous studies have also found that drinking alcohol in moderation is associated with improved cognitive function and a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease.
For the new study, led by Carol Ann Paul, of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, researchers conducted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and health exams on 1,839 adults (average age 60) participating in the Framingham Offspring Study between 1999 and 2001. None of the participants had evidence of clinical dementia or had suffered a stroke.
The men and women were asked how much alcohol they drank each week, then were classified as abstainers, former drinkers, or low (one to seven drinks per week), moderate (eight to 14 drinks per week) or high consumers of alcohol (more than 14 drinks a week).
Most participants (almost 38 percent of men and more than 44 percent of women) fell into the "low-consumption" category. Men were more likely than women to report being moderate or heavy drinkers.
Alcohol had no protective affect on the normal, age-related shrinkage in brain volume, the researchers found.
To the contrary, the more a person drank, the more their brain volume diminished. This relationship was somewhat more pronounced in women, although women tended to be lighter drinkers.
The gender difference could be explained by biological factors, namely that alcohol is absorbed faster in women and they tend to feel the effects of alcohol more than men, the researchers said.
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- groups:
- Health, Current News US, Current News UK, Alcohol, 1 more
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- jmromana
- added this
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Is this why my brain feels like it rattles around in my skull when I'm hungover?
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I have a 20 year-old medical dictionary that says that alcohol shrinks the brain. It even has a photo of two human brains - one from a non-drinker and one from an alcoholic. The alcoholic's brain is half the size of the non-drinker's brain and is rather black in color because of the necrotic cells.
As for women feeling alcohol faster than men, it all depends on their body-build and on their genetic makeup. I can drink any man under the table, and there was a period of my youth during which I downed a liter of vodka every night (slowly, with orange juice, over a period of some six or seven hours), and was never drunk. But then, I do have Russian genes! :)
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- Vierotchka
- 1 year ago
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my sister needs to read this
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- rainbowryan420
- 1 year ago
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Explains the Palin base.
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- isnamthere
- 1 year ago
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oh! I had wondered what that rattling was...now I know!
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- dirtyemowords
- 1 year ago
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So, let me get this straight. If man continues to drink excessively, 200 years from now mans brain will be smaller than his eyeball. Right?
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- WorldPeaceTV
- 1 year ago
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Thanks good I don't drink much :)
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- sergefreeman
- 1 year ago
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And shrinkage of the brain is bad because......
It leads one to believe it's bad, but it doesn't state why.
Unless it's linking dementia to drinking excessively or you could get it should you drink a lot....because it didn't state that either.
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you can feel it happening, its commonly referred to as a hangover, even though alcohol in in a liquid form, it actually dehydrates you in many ways, the one in question, the gray matter of the brain, soaks up alcohol like a sponge, then the alcohol metabolizes and causes all the symtoms mentioned above.
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- jonny2times
- 1 year ago
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...i thought i was getting smarter every year...guess i am wrong
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- bigloutech
- 1 year ago
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Is that excess drinking shrinks the brain or is that people with shrinking brains drink excessively?
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what is "excessive drinking????"
because im pretty sure my college career qualifies me as an excessive drinker....oh well i'll just go back to smoking reefer.no point in being sober....the economy is bad =)
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- Meaghan1126
- 1 year ago
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DOH!!
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This is why alcohol is legal, shrink the brain, control the people, be different smoke some pot and go hiking. You'll feel free.
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- krush_productions
- 1 year ago
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That's odd,... excessive drinkers are usually the smartest, most focused people,... driving drunk at 4pm.
Let's not discount the problems "light" or "social" drinking brings, also. Just because there's no obvious brain-trauma with social drinking,... it has still got to be causing irreversible damage. Memory, sensory problems, et cetera.
DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE! -
it makes sence. heavy drinkers can just not comprehend that smoking pot is a lot healthier and safer then drinking.
even with all the studys that prove this it still does nothing to sway their feelings about pot.
smoke some pot it will be better for your mind, brain, and body. -
This is way I stick to huffing gas and smalling fistfulls of permanent markers. Drinking is stoopid stoppid stoooopid
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mmmmmmmmmmmmmm,beer.
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- ResistRebelRevolt
- 1 year ago
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Isn't that the point? If I wanted to think, I wouldn't drink.
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Uh oh.
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- Byrontosaurus
- 1 year ago
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Does this still happen even if you throw it all back up again?
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you don't actually throw it up, ethanol is hydrophobic so your body readily absorbs and this is part of the reason you begin feeling intoxicated so quickly
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- dictionhound
- 1 year ago
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I think this article should go out to the whole world so people can see the effect of this product then maybe people can make more better decisions.
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- oscar_cuevas
- 1 year ago
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omg, say it ain't so. Fuck you article and your science words. Quantify this (explicit hand motion) motherfucker
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- schimmerman
- 1 year ago
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this new study should be able to prevent those that care about their health from drinking. The information should make those that drink stop,because of the situation of the side effects.
