Heavy Drinking May Shrink Brain Size, Accelerate Mental Decline

By Joi Preciphs

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Drinking too much alcohol on a regular basis may speed the shrinking of the brain that comes with age and accelerate mental decline, a study showed.

Brain scans of more than 1,800 people showed that those who consumed more than 14 drinks a week had about 1.6 percent less brain volume compared with nondrinkers. The effect was more
pronounced among women than men, said lead researcher Carol Ann Paul, an instructor at Wellesley College near Boston.

Size reductions in certain parts of the brain have been linked to Alzheimer's disease in previous research. More than 12 million Americans could be diagnosed as alcohol dependent, and consuming 12 to 15 drinks a week places a person at risk of the condition, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

"The study is a snapshot in time,'' Paul said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We're not looking at their entire history. The next steps would be to look at the longitudinal effects of alcohol, the effects over a lifetime."

More research is needed to help determine whether the results apply to a wider population and specifically what the connection means, Paul said. Paul and her colleagues were looking for signs that alcohol might slow brain aging in a way similar to the reduction in heart disease that studies have shown for people who consume low- to moderate amounts. Paul presented the study results at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in Boston yesterday.

The researchers examined results of brain scans performed on men and women 34 to 88 years old and without signs of dementia. Dividing the group into nondrinkers, former drinkers, low, moderate and high drinkers, the researchers measured brain volume in relation to skull size, considered a marker of brain aging.

People with a 12-year history of heavy drinking had less brain volume than those who began drinking more moderately during that period and later consumed greater amounts, Paul said. Heavy drinking seemed to have the most negative impact on the brain volume of women in their 70s, she said. Past studies have suggested that older women have risk factors that make them
particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of heavy drinking.

According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, almost 18 million Americans abuse alcohol. Each year, more than 100,000 Americans die of alcohol-related causes.