Study: How Alcohol And Smoking Are Linked To Brain Aging

Study: How alcohol and smoking are linked to brain aging

Aging of the brain is associated with decreased cognitive function and an increased risk of dementia. The speed of this process varies from person to person. Scientists are trying to establish on what external factors it depends.

Photo: CC0 Public Domain /

Aging of the brain is associated with decreased cognitive function and an increased risk of dementia. The speed of this process varies from person to person. Scientists are trying to establish on what external factors it depends.

In a new scientific paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers have established how the rate of brain aging depends on smoking and drinking alcohol. In this they were helped by artificial learning algorithms (artificial intelligence), which were trained to determine the degree of brain aging, based on structural changes in images obtained using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The authors were interested in the relative aging of the brain: how much older or younger each study participant compared to the average of his peers, according to MRI data. The scientists used data from 11,600 people, which they obtained from the large UK Biobank database.

According to the study, each additional pack of cigarettes a person smokes a day for one year increases the relative aging of the brain by 0.03 years. Every gram of alcohol per day was associated with an additional 0.02 years of aging.

Scientists have concluded that smoking and drinking alcohol have a significant effect on brain aging, mainly in people who are prone to heavy abuse. The severity of changes in the brain was moderate.

The authors note that in addition to smoking, genetic and environmental factors influence brain aging. Larger studies are required to clarify their impact.