Drank a glass, drank two…
Even small doses of alcohol atrophy the brain, scientists have found
The use of even small portions of alcohol corresponding to one bottle of beer per week leads to atrophy of the memory center in the brain and to deterioration of its work in general, British scientists say in an article published in the journal BMJ (Moderate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes and cognitive decline: longitudinal cohort study).
"The results of our study suggest that the current alcohol consumption rates in the United States and Britain are too high – they allow people to drink about 240 grams of alcohol per week. We found out that hippocampal atrophy begins already when drinking 140 grams of alcohol," says the first author of the article, Anya Topiwala from Oxford University (in a press release, Even moderate drinking linked to a decline in brain health – VM).
For quite a long time, some doctors and scientists believe that moderate alcohol consumption, several glasses of wine or glasses of beer a week, is not dangerous for human health. Moreover, some studies conducted in the last 10 years show that people who drink such portions of alcohol are noticeably less likely to suffer from heart and vascular diseases and move up the career ladder faster.
Topivala and her colleagues decided to check whether this is really the case by analyzing statistics that British medical services have collected over the past 30 years when observing people aged 40 and older. These data included not only how much alcohol British men and women drank, but also an MRI of their brain.
Scientists randomly selected about 550 of them and conducted several surveys among these people, checking their memory and intelligence over the past five years. After that, the researchers combined the data and tried to understand whether alcohol affects the "external" manifestations of our brain and its internal structure.
Contrary to generally accepted ideas about the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption, Topival's team could not find any signs that drinking very small portions of alcohol – less than 70 grams per week – led to any noticeable improvements in brain function.
On the other hand, the consumption of more than 140 grams of alcohol was already beginning to negatively affect the work of the brain. People who drank such an amount of alcohol had a more "loose" hippocampus, the memory center, than their non-drinking peers, and performed worse in memory and intelligence tests. In addition, they had atrophied other regions of the brain, including its white matter in the large hemispheres, and they could also name fewer words by one letter than teetotallers.
The strength of all these effects, as scientists emphasize, gradually increased along with the amount of alcoholic beverages consumed, which indicates a direct link between alcohol and atrophy of the nervous system. This, according to Topivaly and her colleagues, should be taken into account by all health services in the world when formulating strategies to combat alcoholism and its consequences for human health.
"How should doctors convey this information to their patients? This article shows that the positive effects of alcohol consumption, if they exist, are characteristic only for extremely small doses of alcohol. We have fewer and fewer reasons to believe that moderate alcohol consumption is a normal and healthy thing," comments Killian Welch, a British neurophysiologist from The Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
08.06.2017