Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Cross-sectional observational study of a large population cohort.
PubMed 35246521 · doi:10.1038/s41467-022-28735-5
What was done
Researchers analyzed multimodal brain imaging data from 36,678 generally healthy middle-aged and older adults in the UK Biobank to examine associations between self-reported alcohol consumption and measures of brain macrostructure and microstructure, controlling for multiple potential confounding variables.
What was found
Alcohol intake was negatively associated with global brain volume measures, regional gray matter volumes, and white matter microstructure. Negative associations were detected in individuals consuming an average of one to two alcohol units daily and strengthened with increasing consumption. Specific numerical effect sizes, regression coefficients, and confidence intervals were not reported in the abstract.
Why it matters
These findings suggest that negative associations between alcohol and brain volume are not restricted to heavy drinkers but are present even at light-to-moderate levels of consumption.
Limits
The abstract provides no exact numerical values, effect sizes, or test statistics. As an observational, cross-sectional analysis, the design cannot prove causality, self-reported alcohol intake may be subject to recall bias, and findings from the middle-aged and older UK Biobank population may not generalize globally.