Moderate drinking may lead to cognitive decline

A new study suggests that moderate drinking is linked to higher iron levels in the brain which is associated with worse performance on cognitive testing.

An intake of seven to 14 units weekly is considered moderate drinking, according to the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Low-Risk Drinking Guidance. 

The study, conducted by the University of Oxford, included 20,965 people from the UK Biobank. 

UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource that is enabling new scientific discoveries to be made that improve public health.

The average age of study participants was 55 years old, of which 48.6 per cent were women. 

Researchers used touchscreen questionnaires asking the participants if they were either current, never, or previous drinkers. 

For current drinkers the average amount of alcohol consumer per week was around 18 units, which is roughly equivalent to six large glasses of wine or seven and a half cans of beer.

In order to assess the amount of iron in the participants’ brains, researchers performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). 

Results showed that drinking more than seven units of alcohol every week was linked to higher levels of iron in the basal gland, which is an area in the brain responsible for cognition, motor movements and, emotions and eye movement.

The researchers also linked these levels of iron with a worse cognitive function.

Anya Topiwala, leader author of the research, said: “Potential implications are that this adds the increasing evidence base that even small amounts of alcohol may damage the brain.

“Additionally, it offers insight into the way alcohol damages the brain – and we hope offers future avenues for studies to test whether intervening to lower iron might help avoid damage.”

The research team said that, given how commonplace moderate drinking is, efforts to reduce consumption would be beneficial.