Even moderate drinkers are at greater risk of brain damage than others. Atrophies of an area involved in cognition are more frequent.
Forget your excuses to justify drinking cocktails. Even at a moderate level, alcohol has harmful effects on the body. One organ toasts in particular: the brain. And this, from 14 glasses in the week, as shown in a study from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), published in the British Medical Journal.
To reach these conclusions, the work is based on the monitoring of 550 Britons. For 30 years, they answered lifestyle questionnaires and had MRI scans. During this period, the researchers found a marked difference between volunteers who consumed alcohol and those who abstained.
Gray matter under attack
Unsurprisingly, the impact on the brain is strongest among heavy drinkers. Those who allow themselves more than 30 units per week (1) are six times more likely to have hippocampal atrophy. This area of the brain plays a role in memorization and evolution in space.
More worryingly, the white matter itself loses its integrity. Damage is observed in the biggest fans of drunkenness; their cognitive functions are affected. The latter also suffer from more decline of language. The researchers evaluated it with a simple test, which consists of quoting the most words starting with a specific letter.
A notable consumption
But even in moderate amounts, alcohol continues to affect the brain. The risk of hippocampal atrophy is tripled in those who take 14 to 21 units in a week.
As for people who consider themselves protected by their low consumption, they risk being disappointed. It does not confer any advantage over abstinence.
These results are significant in view of the quantities of alcohol consumed during the study. If the women are more temperate, half of them drank more than 6 units of alcohol per week. Men consume 11.5 units or more in half of the cases.
Dementias and other pathologies
These conclusions are consistent with the new benchmarks on alcohol consumption, developed by Public Health France. The agency recommends not to exceed two drinks per day, and not more than ten per week. This therefore includes several days of total sobriety.
For Killian Welch, neuropsychiatrist at the Royal Hospital in Edinburgh (United Kingdom), this work should wake up spirits. “We use all types of arguments to explain the persistence of behaviors that are not in our long-term interest,” he admits in an editorial associated with the study. In view of this work, justifying moderate consumption in terms of brain health is difficult. “
Because alcohol damage to health is far from anecdotal. The substance is responsible for 10% of early dementias. In specialized establishments, it is considered responsible for 10 to 24% of diagnosed cases of dementia. Alcohol is also involved in several forms of cancer and cardiovascular pathologies. It would be responsible for 49,000 deaths per year in France, each year.
(1) One unit of alcohol corresponds to 10 grams of pure alcohol. In France, it serves as a reference for the doses served in bars and restaurants. Thus, a glass will always contain one unit of alcohol. This represents 25 cl of beer (5 °), 10 cl of wine (12 °) or even 3 cl of whiskey (40 °).
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