Alcohol consumption ages the brain

The effects of alcohol consumption on the human brain continue to be investigated. A new study reveals that consuming even small amounts of alcohol carries risks for the brain. In the study, it was observed that even light to moderate alcohol consumption was associated with reductions in overall brain volume.

Drinking even a little alcohol ages the brain

University of Pennsylvania researchers, after examining data from more than 36,000 adults, observed that small amounts of alcohol consumption cause a decrease in overall brain volume. The team also notes that decreases in brain volume increase as alcohol consumption increases.

The research team, which states that alcohol consumption ages the brain, for example, shows that increasing alcohol consumption from 25cl beer (1 unit alcohol) to 50cl beer (2 units alcohol) or a glass of wine per day on average in 50-year-old individuals has results equivalent to aging in the brain for two years. .

The team, which examined the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of 36,678 patients, determined that all data were analyzed according to many parameters such as age, height, hand preference, gender, body mass index, smoking status, socioeconomic status, genetic codes and county of residence. He says it’s checked and even adjusted brain volume data for overall head size.

The next step will focus on causality

Researchers who conducted a survey on the frequency and amount of alcohol drinking in volunteers compared the questionnaires with their data and found that switching from zero to one unit of alcohol did not make much difference in brain volume, but one to two times a day. They concluded that switching to one or two or three units causes a reduction in both gray and white matter in the brain.

Comparing the reduction in brain volume due to aging with the volume reduction caused by alcohol consumption, the team states that going from zero to an average unit of alcohol per day has the effect of aging for half a year, but the difference between zero and four units of alcohol can be associated with aging more than 10 years.

The study does not focus on how alcohol achieves this effect. It was calculated that the volumetric decrease in the brain with the increase in consumption alone and the associated number of years equivalent to aging were calculated. The researchers want to be able to pinpoint causality more precisely with the new longitudinal biomedical datasets.