Heavy social drinkers show the same pattern of brain damage as hospitalized alcoholics — enough to impair day-to-day functioning, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Brain scans show clear damage, and tests of reading, balance and other function show people who drink more than 100 drinks a month have some problems, the researchers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSocially functioning heavy drinkers often do not recognize that their level of drinking constitutes a problem that warrants treatment,\u201d the researchers at the University of California San Francisco wrote in their report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe enrollment criterion for heavy drinkers was the consumption of more than an average of 100 alcoholic drinks per month for men over 3 years before the study (80 drinks for women),\u201d they wrote in the report, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.<\/p>\n
One drink is usually defined as a serving of spirits, a glass of wine or a can or bottle of beer.<\/p>\n
Dieter Meyerhoff of UCSF and colleagues examined 46 chronic, heavy drinkers and 52 light drinkers recruited using newspaper ads and flyers.<\/p>\n
They used magnetic resonance imaging to look at physical brain structures and also measured various brain chemicals associated with healthy brain function.<\/p>\n
Standard tests of verbal intelligence, processing speed, balance, working memory, spatial function, executive function, and learning and memory were given to the volunteers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur heavy drinkers sample was significantly impaired on measures of working memory, processing speed, attention, executive function, and balance,\u201d the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n
Measures of brain chemicals and structures showed some of the same damage seen in alcoholics who are in the hospital or treatment centers, they said.<\/p>\n
The study is unusual in that most studies of brain damage from alcohol are done in people who have undergone treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat our findings indicate is that brain damage is detectable in heavy drinkers who are not in treatment and function relatively well in the community,\u201d Meyerhoff said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Meyerhoff said the study showed evidence of brain impairment, even if the drinkers cannot see it themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur message is: Drink in moderation. Heavy drinking damages your brain ever so slightly, reducing your cognitive functioning in ways that may not be readily noticeable. To be safe, don’t overdo it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meyerhoff said that for most adults, moderate alcohol use translates to up to two drinks per day for younger men, and one drink per day for women and older people.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #4745]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heavy social drinkers show the same pattern of brain damage as hospitalized alcoholics — enough to impair day-to-day functioning, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. Brain scans show clear damage, and tests of reading, balance and other function show people who drink more than 100 drinks a month have some problems, the researchers said. \u201cSocially functioning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[654,1885,1033,1110],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}