A few glasses of wine daily may be a good for cardiovascular and brain health, but this habit is not without risk as it can reduce brain cell production by 40 percent, says a new research.
Megan Anderson, a graduate student working with Tracey J. Shors, professor of behavioural and systems neuroscience at the Rutgers University, stated that moderate to binge drinking - drinking less during the week and more on the weekends - damages the structural integrity of the adult brain.
"Moderate drinking can become binge drinking without the person realizing it," Anderson has been quoted as saying.
Initially there may not be any noticeable motor skills or overall functioning problems, but in the long term this type of behaviour could negatively affect learning and memory, says the journal Neuroscience.
Tracey Shors and Anderson worked with postdoctoral fellow Miriam Nokia from the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland to study moderate to heavy drinking in humans using rodents that reached a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent - the legal driving limit in the US and many other countries – and observed that brain cell production was affected negatively, says a Rutgers statement.
Researchers also found that at this level of intoxication in rats - comparable to about 3-4 drinks for women and five drinks for men - the number of nerve cells in the hippocampus of the brain was decreased by nearly 40 percent in comparison to those found in the abstinent group of rodents.
It is hippocampus from where the new neurons are made and is also known to be essential for some types of new learning.
"If this area of your brain was affected every day over many months and years, eventually you might not be able to learn how to get somewhere new or to learn something new about your life," Anderson has been quoted as saying.
"It's something that you might not even be aware is occurring."
According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, USA, men who took 14 drinks a week and women who drink seven are considered at-risk the risk of these kinds of effects.
Although college students are commonly binge drink, the institute reports says that 70 percent of binge drinking episodes involved adults aged 26 and older.
"This research indicates that social or daily drinking may be more harmful to brain health than what is now believed by the general public," Anderson has been quoted as saying.
--with inputs from IANS
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