A recent study demonstrated some significant adverse effects of drinking on not only your brain size, but also its function. Any Topiwala and colleagues recently published their 30-year study in the British Medical Journal. They not only quantitatively measured the size of subject’s brains with MRI, but also did serial cognitive testing.

What did they find?

Sections of your brain actually get smaller with the more alcohol you ingest. This was especially noticed in the hippocampal area, but also affected the white matter integrity in the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres. Also, there was a faster decline in lexical fluency (measures of language and executive function).

In short:

• your brain shrinks,
• the wires that connect both sides get degraded,
• and your language and higher executive functions decline faster.

The above effects were seen with those who consumed four large beers a week, or five glasses of wine a week.

This is on top of the increased risk of mouth, esophageal, stomach, and liver cancers. Alcohol increases your blood pressure and increases your short- and long-term risks of atrial fibrillation, which is growing in incidence.