Previous studies have shown clear science on heavy drinking and its effects on the brain. People who drink heavily experience changes in their brain structure and size that can be associated with cognitive impairments. But a recent study shows that even a small amount of an alcoholic drink could also be bad for the brain.
Scientists examined 36,000 adults and found that despite the joys that come with an occasional glass of an alcoholic drink, it could shrink the brain. This finding is contrary to the results from previous research suggesting safe drinking limits, says Henry Kanzler, a psychiatry researcher from the Penn Center for Studies of Addiction.
One Alcoholic Drink A Day Linked to Shrinking of Brain Matter Equivalent to Two Years of Aging, Study Claims
Is There A Safe Amount of Alcoholic Drink?
Doctors usually recommend moderate amounts of alcohol as it also provides health benefits to the heart and the brain. But many studies found no amount of alcoholic drink is healthy. Even the World Heart Foundation backed this claim as alcohol can still lead to other health problems.
Alcohol researcher Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington, said that small amounts of alcohol may be associated with health benefits of some conditions, like ischemic heart disease and diabetes, but it could still lead to road traffic accidents, breast cancer, and stroke.
She added that there is not a simple answer to whether small amounts of alcoholic drinks are safe or not. But previous research showed that it depends on the person's health status and risk profile, whether they are more to chronic diseases or not.
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Light-To-Moderate Alcohol Consumption Linked to Reductions of Overall Brain Volume
The international team of researchers looked at the data of 36,678 middle-aged to older adults taken from the UK Biobank. According to Science Alert, the team looked at the self-reported number of units per week or month of the participants and converted the units per week into units per day. They also had access to MRI data that help them determine the brain sizes of participants, including their gray and white matter.
They found a negative association between consumption of alcoholic drinks and brain structure in which the largest volume changes were noted in three areas of the brain cortex, namely the brain stem, putamen, and amygdala.
Researchers said that this connection occurred very strongly at those who drank the most alcohol, especially those over 50 years old, compared to those who drink and had four units per day. The white and gray matter volume is been found to change equivalent to over ten years of extra aging.
However, a news release from the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Today reported that there was also a difference between those who only had one or two drinks a day for someone age 50 and up. They noted that these participants had brain changes of two years' worth of aging in both gray and white matter.
In their study, titled "Associations Between Alcohol Consumption and Gray and White Matter Volumes in the UK Biobank" published in the journal Nature, their multimodal study highlights the potential for light to moderate drinking to be linked to changes in brain volume in middle-aged and older adults.
Even when they removed the heavy drinkers from the analyses, the negative associations between an alcoholic drink and brain health remained. As researchers said, people who can benefit the most from drinking less are those heavy drinkers.
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