Already Low-Dose Alcohol Use Shrinks Brain Volume, New Study Shows

Previous research has already established that alcohol intake negatively affects the brain. Now a new study examined a large sample of 36,678 British middle-aged participants from the Biobank study to see how low dose alcohol use affects the brain.


The researchers found that already small amounts of alcohol use, such as one or two units, can shrink brain volume. The more alcohol is used the worse the effects get, with two units a day ageing the brain by two years compared to those who had one unit a day and four units a day ageing the brain by a decade.
Already low dose alcohol use negatively affects global brain volume measures, regional gray matter volumes, and white matter microstructure.


This study is the largest scientific investigation conducted on the matter so far.

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