Even low levels of alcohol consumption are associated with a reduction in total cerebral brain volume, according to a study in the October Archives of Neurology.
Alcohol had no neuroprotective effects on normal age-related decline in brain volume, reported Carol Ann Paul, MS, Senior Instructor in Science Laboratory at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and colleagues from Boston University School of Public Health. “Increasing levels of alcohol consumption were consistently associated with smaller brain volume after adjusting for covariates,” the authors stated.
Ms. Paul’s group calculated the mean total cerebral brain volume and white matter lesions among patients who reported varying degrees of alcohol consumption. A total of 861 men and 978 women (mean age, 61) from the Framingham Offspring cohort were included. Participants were designated to one of five categories of alcohol consumption: abstainers, former drinkers, low (one to seven drinks per week), moderate (eight to 14 drinks per week), and high (> 14 drinks per week); none of the participants had a history of clinical dementia or stroke.
The investigators adjusted for covariates such as age, gender, education, height, BMI, and Framingham Stroke Risk Profile (FSRP) score. “Among women, amount of alcohol consumption was significantly associated with each covariate, but among men, alcohol consumption was associated only with FSRP score,” they stated. A strong negative linear association was observed between each category of alcohol consumption and total cerebral brain volume; each group had, on average, a smaller brain volume than the group that had consumed less alcohol. “Even former drinkers have, on average, smaller brains than abstainers,” Ms. Paul said. The correlations were stronger for women than for men, which may be attributed to biologic factors, including the fact that women absorb alcohol more rapidly than men do.
No significant association was found between alcohol consumption and white matter lesions.
Study limitations included low statistical power for some analyses due to low participant numbers in some alcohol consumption groups, as well as the difficulty in distinguishing alcohol consumption effects from age effects on total cerebral brain volume. The likelihood of participants underreporting their drinking patterns was also noted, although “this would most likely have resulted in an underestimate of the association,” the researchers pointed out.
“This study suggests that, unlike associations with cardiovascular disease, alcohol consumption does not have any protective effect on brain volume,” Ms. Paul and coauthors concluded.
—Laura Sassano