The more a person drinks, the smaller their brain, Carol Ann Paul of Wellesley College in Massachusetts and her colleagues found. The result "gives a clear message about the possible dangers of drinking alcohol," they write in the Archives of Neurology this month.
People's brains are known to shrink with age and the amount of damaged white matter increases, as people get older, the researchers say. And as dementia and cognitive problems progress, white matter lesions grow and the size of the brain declines. This pattern also is seen in people at greater risk of heart disease.
Given that moderate drinking has been linked to better mental function and a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, Paul and her colleagues investigated the relationship between brain volume and alcohol use in 1,839 men and women participating in the Framingham Offspring Study. All had undergone brain scans, which allowed the researchers to calculate the total volume of their brains while adjusting for head size.
Study participants were grouped into five categories based on alcohol consumption: abstainers, former drinkers, low (one to seven drinks a week), moderate (eight to fourteen drinks a week), or high (more than fourteen drinks a week).
Total brain volume decreased as alcohol consumption rose, the researchers found, and the relationship was stronger for women. "Alcohol is absorbed more rapidly in women than in men, and in general women are more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol than men," the researchers note.
More research, they say, is needed to determine if the smaller brain volumes observed in the study have any effect on how people function.
OMG--if it's not one thing, it's another. DH drinks 1-2 glasses of wine a day. I really enjoys it. He sleeps great. He's 82 years old and has enjoyed his wine every day for more years than I can count. Im not going to take that away from him.
Why do 'they' do this?" It just is something else to worry about (as you said!)
Every study I've seen shows that moderate consumption of alcohol (for example, 1-2 glasses of wine per day) will prevent or delay the onset of AD, and will even slow down the progression of MCI and mild AD. So it will be quite interesting to see how they correlate brain shrinkage with decreased AD.