Just over a drink a day could have an impact on your brain
Embargoed until:
Publicly released:
2022-07-15 04:00
Consuming just over seven standard drinks of alcohol in a week could impact your brain health, according to UK researchers who studied the iron levels in the brain of over 20,000 people. The participants reported their own alcohol consumption, then had their brains scanned to look at their iron levels and completed a series of cognitive tests. The researchers say drinking more than seven standard drinks in a week was associated with higher iron in a group of brain regions associated with movement, cognition and emotion called the basal ganglia. They say higher iron levels in this region were associated with poorer cognitive performance, suggesting even moderate alcohol consumption can impact cognition.
Journal/conference: PLOS Medicine
Link to research (DOI): 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004039
Organisation/s: University of Oxford, UK
Funder: AT is supported by a Wellcome Trust
(https://wellcome.org/) fellowship (216462/Z/19/
Z). CW is funded, in part, by the China Scholarship
Council (CSC, https://www.
chinesescholarshipcouncil.com/). KPE is funded by
the UK Medical Research Council (https://mrc.ukri.
org/, G1001354 & MR/K013351/1) and the
European Commission (https://ec.europa.eu/
programmes/horizon2020/en/home, Horizon 2020
732592). CM is funded by the NIHR Oxford
Biomedical Research Centre (IS-BRC-1215-20008)
and the BHF Centre of Research Excellence,
Oxford. JG, DL and HZ are supported by the US
Department of Veterans Affairs (https://www.
research.va.gov/funding/, I01CX001849). SBu is
supported by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship jointly
funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal
Society (https://royalsociety.org/, 204623/Z/16/Z).
SBe was supported by the British Heart Foundation
(https://www.bhf.org.uk/for-professionals/
information-for-researchers/what-we-fund, RG/16/
4/32218) and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical
Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014). MH is
supported by the Wellcome Trust (206330/Z/17/Z)
and NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (ISBRC-
1215-20008). SS is supported by a Wellcome
Trust Collaborative Award 215573/Z/19/Z. KLM is
supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Research
Fellowship (202788/Z/16/Z). TN is supported by
the Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and
Discovery, an NIH grant (https://www.nih.gov/, TN:
R01EB026859), the National Institute for Health
Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
(BRC-1215-20014), and a Wellcome Trust award
(TN: 100309/Z/12/Z). The funders had no role in
study design, data collection and analysis, decision
to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Media release
From: PLOS
Moderate drinking linked to brain changes and cognitive decline
Consumption of seven or more units of alcohol per week is associated with higher iron levels in the brain, according to a study of almost 21,000 people publishing July 14th in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. Iron accumulation in the brain has been linked with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and is a potential mechanism for alcohol-related cognitive decline.
There is growing evidence that even moderate alcohol consumption can adversely impact brain health. Anya Topiwala of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and colleagues explored relationships between alcohol consumption and brain iron levels. Their 20,965 participants from the UK Biobank reported their own alcohol consumption, and their brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Almost 7,000 also had their livers imaged using MRI to assess levels of systemic iron. All individuals completed a series of simple tests to assess cognitive and motor function.
Participants’ mean age was 55 years old and 48.6% were female. Although 2.7% classed themselves as non-drinkers, the average intake was around 18 units per week, which translates to about 7½ cans of beer or 6 large glasses of wine. The team found that alcohol consumption above seven units per week was associated with markers of higher iron in the basal ganglia, a group of brain regions associated with control of motor movements, procedural learning, eye movement, cognition, emotion, and more. Iron accumulation in some brain regions was associated with worse cognitive function.
This is the largest study to date of moderate alcohol consumption and iron accumulation. Although drinking was self-reported and could be underestimated, this was considered the only feasible method to establish such a large cohort’s intake. A limitation of the work is that MRI-derived measures are indirect representations of brain iron, and could conflate other brain changes observed with alcohol consumption with changes in iron levels.
Given the prevalence of moderate drinking, even small associations can have a substantial impact across whole populations, and there could be benefits in interventions to reduce consumption in the general population.
Topiwala adds, “In the largest study to date, we found drinking greater than 7 units of alcohol weekly associated with iron accumulation in the brain. Higher brain iron in turn linked to poorer cognitive performance. Iron accumulation could underlie alcohol-related cognitive decline.”
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