Source: Wien Klin Wochenschr  |  Posted 10 years ago

DALLAS, TX -- September 7, 2001 -- How much alcohol an elderly person drinks each week is linked to their brain structure and risk of stroke, for better and for worse, according to a study of more than 3,000 senior citizens, published in the September issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers found that some drinking among the elderly may fight age-related brain injuries, such as silent stroke and white matter disease, but that any level of alcohol intake may shrink brain matter. Silent strokes are strokes in which the effects are too subtle to be noticed when they occurred.
White matter disease comprises tiny areas of age-related injury in the tissue that makes up most of the brain. The study found that elderly people who drink one to six drinks a week (defined as light drinkers) seem to have fewer white matter lesions than either abstainers or those who drink more than 15 drinks a week (moderately heavy drinkers).
The bad news is that every drink is associated with greater brain shrinkage, a condition called atrophy, says lead researcher Kenneth J. Mukamal, M.D., M.P.H., an instructor at Harvard Medical School and associate in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Researchers studied 3,376 individuals over age 65, who were part of a nationwide study called the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS).
The current study is the most comprehensive look at moderate alcohol use and these types of "silent" brain abnormalities, he says. Previous studies generally focused on heavy drinking or on symptomatic stroke.
The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a non-invasive way to visualize tissue, to get pictures of the participants