Hasta La Gadget!

Jan 27

Heavy drinking hits men’s brains harder than women’s, study says

(Credit: CBS)

Maybe the average man can get away with drinking more in one sitting than the average woman. But in the long run, that may not be an advantage.

In a paper titled “Alcohol consumption and cognitive decline in early old age,” and published online this month in Neurology, researchers used a long-term study of British workers to examine the association between alcohol consumption in midlife and subsequent cognitive decline in both men and women. It seems gender may play a role in the effects of alcohol consumption on the brain.

“Our study based on middle-aged participants suggests that heavy drinking is associated with faster decline in all cognitive domains in men,” the paper stated. “In women, there was only weak evidence that heavy drinking was associated with a faster decline in executive function.” In fact, not drinking for 10 years was associated with a faster cognitive decline for women, but don’t take that as a recommendation to drink heavily. The researchers point out that there are other demographic factors involved, such as race and income.

The researchers drew on the Whitehall II study, established in 1985 by Professor Sir Michael Marmot at University College London, which in… [Read more]