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Science Study shows more booze means less brain
Science Study shows more booze means less brain | Study shows more booze means less brain |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Wednesday, 15 October 2008 | |
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Science DiscussionsThe authors of the study, from the state of Massachusetts, state in their paper, “While adults who drink low to moderate amounts of alcohol have lower rates of cardiovascular disease than other adults, the effect of alcohol on the brain is less clear. There is evidence that drinking large amounts of alcohol is related to brain atrophy. It is uncertain what the effects of low to moderate consumption might be.” The title of their paper is “Association of Alcohol Consumption With Brain Volume in the Framingham Study” and it has been published in the October 2008 issue of the journal Archives of Neurology (2008;65(10):1363-1367). The reason for conducting the study was to determine whether consumption of small amounts of alcohol helps or hurts the brain as we age, specifically, what does alcohol usage do to the size (volume) of the brain. In all, 1,839 participants, with an average age of 60 years, were used from the Framingham Offspring Study. The study's goals were to research the incidence and prevalence of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors, trends, and family patterns over time. Each person had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan performed on their brains sometime between the years of 1999 and 2001. Because each person has a different size head the total cerebral brain volume (TCBV) was computed in order to identify brain size. Then, each participant was ranked as to alcohol use: abstainer, former drinker, low drinker, moderate drinker, and high drinker. Page two continues... |
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