“The take-home message is that, if you drink a lot, you’re going to hurt your brain. This is something we knew, but this is a huge study that quantifies that.” said Rajesh Miranda, an associate professor of Health Science Center College of Medicine.

Brain degenerates naturally with aging, at a rate of about 1.9 percent per decade. Simultaneously, the brain gains white matter lesions. Both of these changes are accompanist of dementia and cognitive decline.

For the study, researchers conducted MRI and health examination on 1,839 adults, aged up to 60. None of the participants had evidence of clinical dementia or had suffered a stroke.

The men and women were asked, how much alcohol they drank in a weak, then were categorized in low (1 to 7 drinks per week), moderate (8 to 14 drinks per week) or heavy drinkers (14 or more drinks a week).

Most participants fell into the “low-consumption” class. Men were more likely than women to report being moderate or heavy drinkers.

Alcohol had no protective affect on the normal, age-related shrinkage in brain volume, the researchers found.

Instead, the more a person drank, the more their brain volume reduced. This factor was more prominent in women than men, though women tended to be lighter drinkers.

“The gender difference could be explained by biological factors, namely that alcohol is absorbed faster in women and they tend to feel the effects of alcohol more than men.” researchers said.

These are the conclusive findings of a recent study carried out at the “University of Pitsbugh”.These findings were also presented recently at the annual meeting of the” Radiological Society of North America(RSNA)”.There have been several researches in recent past and there are enough evidences available that connect the cardiovascular health with the brain health.

Reliable estimations of the “National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute” reveal that there are almost 50 million Americans who are suffering from hypertension presently. All these people are open to direct risks of cardiac attacks and aneurysm. Mild cognitive impairment, which affects brain functions such as language, attention and reasoning, is a transition stage between normal aging deficits in the brain and greater levels of dementia.

This study demonstrates that good vascular health is equally good for the brain.“Even in people with Alzheimer’s disease, it is important to detect and aggressively treat hypertension and also to focus on disease prevention”, said Dr.Oscar Lopez, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh.

Researchers applied specific techniques and used ‘arterial spin-labeled magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)’. For 68 older adults, this technique was applied for measuring and imaging the blood flow in the brain.’ Arterial Spin-Labeled Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)’ is a novel, non-invasive technique and it does not require any external contrast agent.

The study involved 48 normal individuals. This group of individuals included 38 with hypertension and 10 without; 20 Alzheimer’s patients, including 10 with hypertension and 10 without; and 20 adults with mild cognitive impairment, 10 with hypertension and 10 without.

The MRI results thus obtained showed that in all patient groups blood flow in the brain was substantially decreased in patients with hypertension compared to those individuals who did not have hypertension. Cerebral blood flow recorded came out to be the lowest among the Alzheimer’s patients with hypertension, but the normal group with hypertension showed significantly lower cerebral blood flow in comparison to the normal group having no hypertension.

The study results established that a positive change in the blood flow patterns will make impacts on the hypertension and would be helpful in contributing to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease.

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