Alcohol Plays a Much Bigger Role in Causing Dementia Than We Thought

It’s hardly a surprise that too much alcohol is bad for the body, including the brain. But a new study published Tuesday in The Lancet suggests that even doctors are underestimating its impact on our risk of developing dementia.

The researchers looked at a nationwide, anonymous database of more than 30 million adult French hospital patients who were discharged sometime between 2008 to 2013. They excluded those at risk of developing rare forms of dementia, such as those brought on by infectious diseases like HIV or other neurological disorders.

Narrowing in on the over 1 million patients newly diagnosed with dementia during that time, the researchers found that heavy alcohol use was a substantial risk factor for every common type of dementia, particularly early-onset cases caught before the age of 65. More than half of the 57,000 patients diagnosed with early-onset dementia—57 percent—showed signs of alcohol-related brain damage or were diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder at the same time.

All told, they estimated that people with diagnosed alcohol problems were more than three times likely to develop any kind of dementia earlier, and over twice as likely to develop forms of dementia not typically associated with alcohol, such as Alzheimer’s.

Source: gizmodo