While excessive drinking is linked to poor brain health, there is a false rumor spreading around that a drink a day is good for your health, and is especially bad for the brain according to a study published in Nature Communications from researchers from the University of Pennsylvania where the authors looked at data from over 36,000 people.
Using data from the UK Biobank for 36,678 subjects with imaging data and alcohol reporting, light to moderate alcohol consumption, or which many would consider one drink per day, led to overall brain volume reductions. While going from zero drinks to 1 unit per week led to negligible effects, overall, the more one drinks, the stronger the associations. For instance, those who are 50 years old, increasing alcohol consumption from half a beer a day (one unit) to two units (one pine of beer or one class of wine), lead an equivalent of brain volume loss of two years. Increasing tinker from 3 to 4 units, lead to 5 years equivalent of brain volume loss. And for the sake of the reader’s enlightenment, increase from 0 units per week to 4, lead to 10 years aging. The researchers’ conclusions were controlled for variables such as age, height, sex, smoking status, genetics, locale, and socioeconomic status.
The authors also note that his is global brain volume loss, and not localized to specific areas in the brain.
“These findings contrast with scientific and governmental guidelines on safe drinking limits…For example, although the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommends that women consume an average of no more than one drink per day, recommended limits for men are twice that, an amount that exceeds the consumption level associated in the study with decreased brain volume,” stated author, Henry Kranzler.
“There is some evidence that the effect of drinking on the brain is exponential,” said lead author, Remi Daviet. “So, one additional drink in a day could have more of an impact than any of the previous drinks that day. That means that cutting back on that final drink of the night might have a big effect in terms of brain aging.”
There’s a lot of bad advice out there and small studies tend to go blown out of proportion. The fact is alcohol is bad for you despite how much we love to hear good things about our bad behaviors. We’re not saying stop drinking entirely but do cut down and place limit to when you have drinks and how much you drink, those can be good places to start.
R Daviet et al. Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28735-5
