Middle-aged and older people who increase their consumption from half a glass of wine a day to one glass show changes and shrinkage in their brain, which equates to about two extra years of aging, according to a new US scientific study, the first that makes this correlation. Even greater alcohol consumption on a daily basis is associated with an even more extensive impact on the brain.
It was already known that people who drink a lot, show cognitive impairment due to changes in the size and structure of their brain. But the new study shows that even levels of consumption that most people consider safe - e.g. A few beers or a few glasses of wine a week - can actually pose risks to the brain and therefore to the mind.
Researchers at the Universities of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin, led by Professor Remy Daviet, who published the study in the journal Nature Communications, analyzed brain scans of 36.678 middle-aged and elderly people, including frequency of alcohol consumption (from zero to more than four glasses a day).
It was found that those who drank an average of half a glass a day, showed no brain differences from those who did not drink alcohol at all. But those who drank a glass had a smaller brain volume and fewer brain connections than those who drank one, those who drank two glasses daily had a smaller brain volume than those who drank one, and so on.
"The more you drink, the worse things get," Daviet said. "Our findings contradict current scientific and governmental guidelines on safe drinking limits," said researcher Henry Kranzler.
Other research in the past has shown that moderate alcohol consumption has no effect or may even benefit the elderly's brain, which new research does not seem to confirm. The researchers estimated that even half a beer a day is equivalent to extra brain aging time, while four drinks a day is equivalent to at least ten years older brain.
"An extra drink a day can have a bigger impact than any previous drink that day. "This means that quitting the last drink of the evening can have a very positive effect in terms of brain aging," said Daviet.
Source: RES-EAP