A large study of adults in the United Kingdom, just published in the journal Nature Communications, found that the negative effects of alcohol consumption grow stronger with each additional drink, writes Hannah Devlin for The Guardian.
Cutting back on the final drink of the evening could substantially improve brain health, reports the 4 March 2022 story. This is according to scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, and the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
A major study of more than 36,000 adults suggests that the negative effects of alcohol consumption grow stronger with each additional drink. So those who drink several units each day potentially have the most to gain by reducing their drinking.
“There is some evidence that the effect of drinking on the brain is exponential,” said Dr Remi Daviet, the study’s first author, who is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“So, one additional drink in a day could have more of an impact than any of the previous drinks that day. That means that cutting back on that final drink of the night might have a big effect in terms of brain ageing.”
According to The Guardian, the study found that the more a person drinks the smaller their brain and that there was less connectivity in the brain’s white matter. Even modest levels of drinking – a few glasses of wine a week – appeared to carry a risk.
And the link between alcohol consumption and reductions in overall brain volume grew stronger the greater the level of alcohol consumption.
The study follows previous work showing links between alcohol consumption and brain health. But it was unclear whether moderate levels of drinking had an impact – some had even suggested that light drinking could be beneficial.
The National Health Service recommends not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis, although it also states that there is no completely safe level of drinking.
Hannah Devlin continues in The Guardian story: the latest study used a dataset of MRI scans from more than 36,000 adults in the UK Biobank and the sheer size of this cohort allowed the relationship between drinking and brain health to be examined in much greater detail.
The research showed a negative association between even one drink a day and brain volume and the link grew stronger the greater the level of alcohol consumption.
In 50-year-olds, increasing average drinking from one alcohol unit (half a pint of beer) a day to two units (a pint of beer or a glass of wine) was associated with changes in the brain equivalent to ageing two years. Going from two to three alcohol units at the same age was like ageing three-and-a-half years.
“It’s not linear,” said Daviet. “It gets worse the more you drink.”
The study, The Guardian story continues, shows an association between drinking and brain volume, rather than proving that this was the underlying cause.
“Our study does not randomly assign people to drink, this would not be ethical to do,” said Dr Reagan Wetherill, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and a co-author.
However, there are plausible reasons for thinking that alcohol has a negative impact on the brain. Alcohol intoxication activates pro-inflammatory enzymes in the brain, Wetherill said, and this could lead to the loss of grey matter and the structure of white matter connection in the brain being impaired.
Find the link to the full The Guardian story below.
Study details
Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank
Remi Daviet, Gökhan Aydogan, Kanchana Jagannathan, Nathaniel Spilka, Philipp D Koellinger, Henry R Kranzler, Gideon Nave and Reagan R Wetherill
Author affiliations: University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, and the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Published online by Nature Communications on 4 March 2022, Volume 13.
Abstract
Heavy alcohol consumption has been associated with brain atrophy, neuronal loss and poorer white matter fibre integrity. However, there is conflicting evidence on whether light-to-moderate alcohol consumption shows similar negative associations with brain structure.
To address this, we examine the associations between alcohol intake and brain structure using multimodal imaging data from 36,678 generally healthy middle-aged and older adults from the UK Biobank, controlling for numerous potential confounds.
Consistent with prior literature, we find negative associations between alcohol intake and brain macrostructure and microstructure. Specifically, alcohol intake is negatively associated with global brain volume measures, regional gray matter volumes, and white matter microstructure.
Here, we show that the negative associations between alcohol intake and brain macrostructure and microstructure are already apparent in individuals consuming an average of only one to two daily alcohol units, and become stronger as alcohol intake increases.
The Guardian story – Cutting back on final drink of day ‘could improve brain health’ (Open access)
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Chronic alcohol use reshapes brain’s immune landscape, driving anxiety and addiction
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BMJ editorial – Lifetime perspective on alcohol and brain health
Low level alcohol use during pregnancy can impact on child brain development
Results from world’s first MDMA – aka ‘ecstasy’ – alcohol use disorder trial