Can Alcohol Shrink Your Brain? It Seems So

The wonderful scene in “Young Frankenstein” when Igor drops the brain in the bottle labeled “Abi-normal” reminds us all that preservative fluids, like alcohol, can pickle brains, when used in the right concentration. And it’s known that drinking large amounts of alcohol is related to brain atrophy. Now a study reported in the Archives of Neurology explores the relationship between consumption of alcohol and brain volume.

Over 1,800 subjects from the Framingham study had magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain in 1999-2001. The total brain volumes were calculated from the MRI results. Alcohol consumption was acquired by questionnaire, and the subjects were classified into 5 groups: abstainers, former drinkers, and low (1-7 drinks a week), moderate (8-14 drinks a week), and high drinkers (more than 14 drinks a week).

The findings were clear. The more a person drank, the more their brain volume was reduced. This relationship was stronger in women than in men; however, it was definite even after corrections for possible influence of age, head circumference, education, height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and the Framingham Stroke Risk Profile.

What’s important about this finding is that there was no ‘protective’ effect of moderate drinking on brain shrinkage, such as that seen for cardiovascular disease.

Why was the effect more pronounced in women? It may be because women absorb alcohol more rapidly than men and have less blood to dilute the alcohol, according to the investigators.

Anyhow, what’s also important about this finding is that it may be reversible, if you stop drinking too much . . .