We all know that excessive consumption of alcohol and hard liquor is bad for you. But even moderate drinking can pose health risks. A concept, now shared by the entire scientific community, reaffirmed by a growing number of studies that warn about consumption levels defined as low-risk in international guidelines (no more than one drink a day for women and no more than two for the men). New American research published in Nature Communication, in particular, has shed light on brain damage related to alcohol consumption, finding that going from one to two units of alcohol per day is linked to alterations in the structure and size of the brain.
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Alcohol and the brain, the damage of drinks
The study analyzed data from over 36,000 adults and found out that the more people consumed alcohol, the more brain matter decreased. So going from zero to one unit of alcohol, which is about half a beer or glass of wine, didn’t seem to make a difference. But the scientists saw a connection between people who drank two units of alcohol a day and a reduction in brain volume analogous to two-year aging. Sure it’s normal for brains to shrink with age, but according to this study, the brains of people who consume two units of alcohol every day may age faster than people who don’t. Drinking three units of alcohol a day, which might equal just two beers, was associated with brain shrinkage equivalent to three and a half years of aging.
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The experts
However, experts want to remind us that the results are correlation, not causation. Qhis association with reductions in brain matter «it’s not linear, but it gets worse the more you drink» explained Remi Daviet, corresponding co-author of the analysis and former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, currently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
«This study looked at average consumption, but we’re curious whether drinking one beer a day is better than having none during the week and then having seven at the weekend – added Gideon Nave, study co-author correspondent and member of Wharton. School of the University of Pennsylvania -. There is some evidence that so-called binge drinking is worse for the brain, but we haven’t looked at it closely yet.».
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The English study
Scholars hope to be able to use the UK Biobank again to study other correlations between brain decay and alcohol consumption, and they also hope to be able to define causality rather than correlation more definitively, which may be possible. with new longitudinal biomedical data sets following people as they age. «We may be able to examine these effects over time and, together with genetics, disentangle the causal relationships – continued Nave -. There is some evidence that the negative effect of drinking on the brain is exponential, so one more drink in one day could have a greater impact than any other drink from the previous day.».