Moderate drinking linked to brain changes and cognitive decline

The study found that people who drank seven or more units of alcohol a week had higher iron levels in their brains. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases can be linked to iron accumulating in the brain.

Moderate alcohol consumption can have a negative effect on brain health. The relationship between alcohol consumption and brain iron levels was explored by a group of people. The UK Biobank's 20,965 participants reported their alcohol consumption, and their brains were scanned. More than 7,000 people had their livers imaged to see how much iron they have. The tests assessed cognitive and motor function.

The participants' mean age was 55. An average of 18 units per week equates to about 712 cans of beer or 6 large glasses of wine for 2.5% of the population. 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. Iron accumulates in some brain regions.

Moderate alcohol consumption and iron accumulate is the largest study to date. The only way to establish such a large cohort's intake was by self-reporting drinking. The work is limited due to the fact that the measures are indirect representations of brain iron and could be used to compare brain changes with alcohol consumption.

Even small associations can have a big impact on the whole population, and there are benefits to reducing consumption in the general population.

In the largest study to date, we found that people who drank more than 7 units of alcohol a week had higher levels of iron in their brain. The higher the brain iron, the poorer the cognitive performance. Alcohol-related cognitive decline could be related to iron accumulating.

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1. Anya Topiwala, Chaoyue Wang, Klaus P. Ebmeier, Stephen Burgess, Steven Bell, Daniel F. Levey, Hang Zhou, Celeste McCracken, Adriana Roca-Fernández, Steffen E. Petersen, Betty Raman, Masud Husain, Joel Gelernter, Karla L. Miller, Stephen M. Smith, Thomas E. Nichols. Associations between moderate alcohol consumption, brain iron, and cognition in UK Biobank participants: Observational and mendelian randomization analyses. PLOS Medicine, 2022; 19 (7): e1004039 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004039