The brain damage was mainly in the frontal areas and the right hemisphere of the brain.
The drink was linked to better word recall, vocabulary and higher cognition scores.
Deaths from overdoses of opioids, methadone, cocaine and heroine are at all-time highs in the US.
Hangovers are not caused by dehydration, a study has revealed.
The conclusions come from a systematic review of 35 studies involving 10,080 people.
Does drinking cause depression or depression cause drinking?
The drink is linked to 40 percent fewer neuronal connections in the emotional centre of the brain.
People also reported sleeping better, having more energy and increased concentration.
People also reported sleeping better, having more energy and increased concentration.
Giving up alcohol for January helps most people lose weight, new research finds.
On top of weight loss, people report sleeping better, having more energy and increased concentration.
Despite only giving up alcohol for January, people were still drinking less six months later, the results showed.
Merely trying to give up alcohol for January has beneficial effects almost as great as being dry for the whole month, the researchers found.
Dr Richard de Visser, who led the research, said:
“The simple act of taking a month off alcohol helps people drink less in the long term: by August people are reporting one extra dry day per week.
There are also considerable immediate benefits: nine in ten people save money, seven in ten sleep better and three in five lose weight.
Interestingly, these changes in alcohol consumption have also been seen in the participants who didn’t manage to stay alcohol-free for the whole month – although they are a bit smaller.
This shows that there are real benefits to just trying to complete Dry January.”
The conclusions come from a study of over 800 people who took part in ‘Dry January’ in 2018.
People reported a huge range of benefits from giving up alcohol for January:
Dr Richard Piper, CEO of Alcohol Change UK, said:
“Put simply, Dry January can change lives.
We hear every day from people who took charge of their drinking using Dry January, and who feel healthier and happier as a result.
The brilliant thing about Dry January is that it’s not really about January.
Being alcohol-free for 31 days shows us that we don’t need alcohol to have fun, to relax, to socialise.
That means that for the rest of the year we are better able to make decisions about our drinking, and to avoid slipping into drinking more than we really want to.
Many of us know about the health risks of alcohol – seven forms of cancer, liver disease, mental health problems – but we are often unaware that drinking less has more immediate benefits too.
Sleeping better, feeling more energetic, saving money, better skin, losing weight… The list goes on.
Dry January helps millions to experience those benefits and to make a longer-lasting change to drink more healthily.”
See the Dry January website for more information.
It can damage memory, problem-solving skills and the ability to read emotions.
It can damage memory, problem-solving skills and the ability to read emotions.
Alcohol consumption is regularly linked to long-term brain damage by research.
It can damage memory, problem-solving skills and the ability to read emotions.
Even moderate alcohol intake is linked to brain damage and worse mental skills.
There is little or no evidence that even low levels of alcohol are beneficial for the brain.
Dr Ksenija Marinkovic, the study’s first author, said:
“Like most body organs, the brain is vulnerable to injury from excessive alcohol consumption.
Most common deficits include difficulties with memory, reduced reasoning and problem solving abilities, and emotional abnormalities.”
Naturally, alcoholics are at a much higher risk of brain damage.
One aspect of this is a deficit in reading facial emotions, said Dr Marinkovic:
“Alcoholics have problems in judging the emotional expressions on people’s faces.
This can result in miscommunication during emotionally charged situations and lead to unnecessary conflicts and difficulties in interpersonal relationships.
The resulting negative repercussions can, in turn, contribute to increased drinking.”
The study involved 30 people, half of whom were recovering alcoholics.
Their brains were scanned while they were given a test of how good they were at reading emotions from faces.
The results showed that recovering alcoholics did worse.
The area of the brain important for processing emotions — the amygdala — did not respond as strongly in recovering alcoholics.
Dr Marinkovic explained:
“…deficient activation of limbic structures inside the temporal lobes – the amygdala and hippocampus – may underlie emotional difficulties in abstinent long-term alcoholics.
Whereas nonalcoholic adult men showed stronger activation in the amygdala and hippocampus when viewing faces with emotional expressions, the alcoholics showed decreased activation in these brain areas, and furthermore responded in an undifferentiated manner to all facial expressions.”
Professor Edith V. Sullivan, study co-author, said:
“…alcoholics may be at a special disadvantage in detecting emotion-filled facial expression, which we all naturally use to convey information, such as warnings, love, anger, and defense, among others, and assume that the intended message is accurately perceived.”
The study was published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research (Marinkovic et al., 2009).
Study of over 1,000 people’s brains tested whether alcohol or cannabis does the most damage.
Study of over 1,000 people’s brains tested whether alcohol or cannabis does the most damage.
Long-term alcohol use is more damaging to the brain than long-term cannabis use, new research finds.
The assumption among many scientists has been that cannabis use may be just as damaging to long-term health as alcohol.
But this new study of over 1,000 people’s brains suggests otherwise.
Alcohol use is linked to decreased gray matter size and lower white matter integrity, the researchers found.
Cannabis, though, had no link to reductions in these critical measures of brain health.
Professor Kent Hutchison, study co-author, is sceptical about the research suggesting cannabis is just as bad for the brain as alcohol:
“When you look at the research much more closely, you see that a lot of it is probably not accurate.
When you look at these studies going back years, you see that one study will report that marijuana use is related to a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus.
The next study then comes around, and they say that marijuana use is related to changes in the cerebellum or the whatever.
The point is that there’s no consistency across all of these studies in terms of the actual brain structures.”
While some suggest cannabis use can be beneficial, many scientists are hesitant.
Rachel Thayer, the study’s first author, said:
“Particularly with marijuana use, there is still so much that we don’t know about how it impacts the brain.
Research is still very limited in terms of whether marijuana use is harmful, or beneficial, to the brain.”
The study involved people with a variety of different alcohol and cannabis intakes aged 18-55.
Professor Hutchison concluded:
“…while marijuana may also have some negative consequences, it definitely is nowhere near the negative consequences of alcohol.”
The study was published in the journal Addiction (Thayer et al., 2017).
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