The more alcohol people drink, the faster their brain reduces its size

Heavy drinking can cause severe medical conditions over the years

The human brain is designed since birth to begin reducing its volume on its own, past a certain age. The process usually shows a 1.9 percent decrease over approximately ten years, in a regular person. But studies conducted on moderate drinkers revealed that the decrease is much more accelerated in their brains, and also causes more white substance lesions than regular people experience. Also, drinkers expose themselves to increased risks of cardio-vascular diseases.


The research was conducted by Wellesley College's Carol Ann Paul, M.S., who, along with her colleagues, analyzed over 1,800 adults, with an average age of about 60 years. They uncovered that while small quantities of alcohol could in fact reduce the signs of aging in the brain, even moderate consumption proves to be very dangerous, especially for middle-aged people. White matter lesions that occur in the brain are likely to eventually cause dementia, as well as thinking, learning and memory-related issues.


The study was conducted on the Framingham Offspring Study, a survey initiated in 1971 on the children of the original Framingham Heart Study participants. For three years, between 1999 and 2001, the subjects received regular medical check-ups, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests. They were also asked to record how much alcohol they had consumed per week, as well as some personal information, including age, education, gender, height and body mass.


The results revealed that women are much more susceptible than men to the influence of alcohol. Doctors hypothesize that this happens because they are smaller in size, but there are other biological factors. "Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to confirm these results as well as to determine whether there are any functional consequences associated with increasing alcohol consumption. This study suggests that, unlike the associations with cardiovascular disease, alcohol consumption does not have any protective effect on brain volume," conclude the authors of this study.