Study Links Drinking, Brain Tissue Loss

AP | 12/04/03

[Davea]

Study Links Drinking, Brain Tissue Loss

Thu Dec 4, 5:43 PM ET

By RENEE C. LEE, Associated Press Writer

DALLAS (AP — Low to moderate drinking may cause a loss of brain tissue in middle-age people, a study found.

The researchers also found that such alcohol consumption does not lower the risk of a stroke — contradicting findings from previous studies.

"I think this is an interesting study because people talk about the beneficial effects of alcohol intake on cardiovascular disease and they try to extend that to stroke," said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Jingzhong Ding, a research associate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "Some studies find beneficial effects, but ours didn't."

Heavy drinking is known to raise the risk of both brain atrophy and stroke, but findings on the effects of low to moderate drinking have varied.

The new study appears in Friday's issue of the American Heart Association (news - web sites) journal Stroke.

It moves doctors a step closer to understanding what amounts of alcohol are harmful, said Dr. Edgar J. Kenton III, a professor of clinical neurology at the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Ding and his colleagues evaluated 1,909 patients, ages 55 and older, from North Carolina and Mississippi who were participants in a study on the buildup of plaque in the arteries. Researchers used information collected between 1987 and 1989 and followed up every three years until 1995.

Using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRIs, researchers measured the patients' ventricular and sulcal areas — voids of the brain containing only cerebrospinal fluid. Increased ventricular and sulcal size indicates a reduction in brain tissue, or atrophy.

The findings showed that both voids grew larger the more people drank.

Ding said researchers cannot make a definitive cause-and-effect link between drinking and brain atrophy because the MRIs were done only once during the study and because they found only a small reduction in tissue.

[speedy]

I like your study better than the first one. Here's mud in your eye.

[potlatch]

24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not!!

LOL, my husband has a sign like that, with the 'I think now' added, but I made him put it out in the back yard!!

[RedsHunter]

Everything old is new again. I remember reading a Reader's Digest article in the 60s that claimed that you lose a million brain cells every time you have a drink.

Exactly so. I remember going to high school assemblies in the late 1950's where the message of the day was to warn we neophyties just how many of our brain cells were going to be rotted away each time we secumbed to the evils of demon rum.

[Anthem]

I got down to here and forgot what the article was about...(hic) woujou beesho kine ashto remine me (hic)? %)

[Ramius]

whahappun??? thereshh an arctickle up there somewheres?

[potlatch]

Lol, hope I don't get banned for refreshing your memory!

[Stars N Stripes]

Huh? What's the question again?

I'll drink to that!

[WackyKat]

Think of this as evolution in action

Predators kill the slowest and weakest of the herd, right?

In the same way, alcohol kills the slowest and weakest brain cells, leaving the fastest and strongest cells to survive

Therefore, although your brain is smaller, it is actually much smarter

[Petronski]

Anyone want to see
my latest brainscan?

That's normal, isn't it?

[rface]

when I was younger I knew I was a full-blown genius - now, after the loss of some of my brain, I have down-graded myself to just smarter than everyone else. Just ask my wife

[Intolerant in NJ]

Low to moderate drinking is its own reward.......

[glorgau]

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!

[autoresponder]

[potlatch]

That's cute! LOL, I may have used up all my 'bandswidth' tonight, my beer gif quit moving!!

[Chu Gary]

The author has obviously never read the very convincing Buffalo theory which is true without question.

[gipper81]

Dr. Jingzhong Ding
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins


... the usual suspects

[MeekOneGOP]

ha! ha! Love it !

[sawyer]

Yes and we still did it as it was fun.

[FreedomPoster]

>>It says low to moderate drinking can cause problems, should we increase our consumption to get out to the low to moderate category?

It's amazing how fast FReepers get to the important unanswered questions on a story like this.

[BoozeHag]

hmmmmmmmm