If you drink too much, you will get dementia early
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.Alcohol is a neurotoxin. Unsurprisingly, larger amounts not only ruin the liver, but also damage the brain. Alcohol abuse is the main risk factor, especially for dementias before the age of 65.
More than half of all dementia sufferers under the age of 65 are dependent on alcohol or suffer from an illness that is the result of consumption. These include alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver, head injuries from alcohol-related falls or Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.
"Younger" men are particularly affected
Michaël Schwarzinger and colleagues from the Sorbonne have evaluated data from almost 32 million patients who were discharged from French clinics between 2008 and 2013.
57,000 of the under 65-year-olds suffered from dementia. Two thirds of them were men. In old age it is exactly the opposite. Here women make up two thirds of the patients.
Alcohol abuse and secondary diseases were widespread among younger dementia patients: 67 percent of the men and 39 of the women in this group were diagnosed with this type of diagnosis. Thus, alcohol turned out to be the strongest risk factor for early onset dementia.
Brain damage from alcohol
The most common were dementias, which were directly attributable to brain damage from alcohol. But all other forms of dementia such as Alzheimer's or vascular dementia were also favored by heavy alcohol consumption.
"Most overview pages attribute a possible positive effect on memory to low to moderate alcohol consumption," according to the authors. But such statements should be treated with caution. In fact, even moderate amounts of drinking were often associated with damage to the brain structure. In addition, many studies on alcohol consumption and its consequences are methodologically poor.
Not only addicts affected
Alcohol can damage the brain in a number of ways. This not only affects people who are addicted, but everyone who drinks too much.
Ethanol and its breakdown product acetaldehyde have a neurotoxic effect, i.e. they directly destroy the nerve cells. The consequences are permanent structural and functional damage to the brain.
Dangerous thiamine deficiency
Heavy alcohol consumption also triggers a thiamine deficiency, which causes Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. The disease is accompanied by severe memory impairment. These are typically replenished by the patients with made-up stories.
Attacked blood vessels
High alcohol consumption also damages blood vessels, among other things because alcohol increases blood pressure. This increases the risk of vascular dementia. It is caused by circulatory disorders in the brain and is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's.
Drinking also promotes other health problems that can also cause brain damage. These include epilepsy, head injuries, and hepatic encephalopathy. This liver-brain disorder occurs when the liver stops working properly, causing toxins to build up in the brain.
Alcohol abuse and addiction in Germany
In Germany, the per capita consumption of pure alcohol is around ten liters per year. That's a whole bucket. More than 1.8 million people in this country are dependent on alcohol, another 1.6 million use it in a harmful way.
An indication of harmful consumption is a daily intake of more than 60 g of pure alcohol for men and more than 40 g of alcohol for women.
However, alcohol consumption is already at risk if women consume more than 20 g of alcohol per day and men more than 40 g. In Germany, every fifth man and every tenth woman drinks riskily.
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