Alcohol drinking chips away at brain

Even moderate alcohol drinking can be detrimental to cognitive health, such that intake levels of only one to two daily alcohol units lead to a reduction in brain volume, which becomes greater as alcohol intake increases, a study has found.

Researchers analysed the associations between alcohol intake and brain structure using multimodal imaging data from 36,678 generally healthy middle-aged and older adults (52.8 percent female) from the UK Biobank.

The participants were of European descent, and the reported alcohol consumption ranged from low (ie, 1–2 alcohol units per day) to high (ie, >4 alcohol units per day). Analyses revealed that alcohol intake had inverse relationships with global gray and white matter measures, regional gray matter volumes, and white matter microstructure indices.

Of note, the associations were seen across the brain, with the magnitude increasing progressively with the average absolute number of daily alcohol units consumed.

Although close to 90 percent of all regional gray matter volumes showed significant negative correlations with alcohol intake, the most extensively affected regions were the frontal, parietal, and insular cortices. There were also alterations seen in temporal and cingulate regions, as well as in the brain stem, putamen, and amygdala.

The findings above indicate that the brain changes associated with alcohol intake is an accumulation of many small effects that are widespread, rather than a localized effect that is limited to specific regions.