Alcohol Shrinks the Brain???

autopsy

 

People write to me regularly and make suggestions for blog topics. I post almost every day, and although I am positively fecund on the topic of alcoholism, I do stare at the screen occasionally with a blank mind, so I am grateful…

Which brings me to today’s topic – thanks Richard, now I’m worried I’m going to be embarrassed on a slab at the morgue. Have you noticed by the way, that in detective shows the dead bodies are usually hot and well coiffed and posed artistically? It’s another way the media puts pressure on us to perform…

Anywho,

About.com  says results of autopsy studies show that patients with a history of chronic alcohol consumption have smaller, lighter, more shrunken brains than nonalcoholic adults of the same age and gender.

This finding has been confirmed in living alcoholics using structural imaging techniques  – alcoholics consistently have brain damage even when they don’t show signs of liver disease or dementia.  The shrinkage is most extensive in the frontal cortex of the brain (the seat of high intellectual functions).

And the more you drink, the more you shrink… Men drinkers may find this twice as meaningful (tee hee).

It takes four years of abstinence from alcohol to get a nice, fat healthy brain back. For some the damage is irreversible.

 

Alcohol makes you stupid.

 

Today I’m not drinking, because I want a healthy brain…

How come you’re not drinking?