There is an opinion that alcohol destroys neurons. Some literally claim that “he who drinks urinates his own brain in the morning.” We decided to test whether alcohol can actually cause such significant damage to the brain of the person who drinks it.
About the harmful effects of alcohol on the brain write many Media And bloggers. Here, for example, excerpts from one such message: “Alcohol... is absorbed into the blood, goes with the bloodstream to the brain, and a person begins the process of intense destruction of the cerebral cortex,” “after each so-called moderate drink, a new cemetery of dead neuron nerve cells appears in a person’s head.” And like this describe long-term consequences: “The process of stupefaction in different people proceeds differently: in some, the occipital part, the vistibular apparatus is destroyed first, they are tossed from side to side, in others the moral center is destroyed, they say about them - he did this drunk - he would never have been sober, the person becomes crazy; his brain cells responsible for behavior die off... in still others, his memory is destroyed; instead of cells, he has a cat. they had to remember yesterday - a scar as thick as a finger. What happens to these killed cells - these cells are human tissue, the temperature under the skull is 36 degrees. these cells begin to rot and decompose, and these rotting brain cells are the cause of a drunkard’s headache. But so that these rotting cells do not poison the entire brain and kill the person, the body is forced to pump a huge amount of liquid under the skull, and this liquid crushes the head of a hangover drunk with pincers. This liquid dissolves the dead cells and the next morning discharges them through the genitourinary system into the city sewer system” (spelling and punctuation preserved).
Proponents of the idea that alcohol brutally deals with our brain cells cite the example of antiseptics that have become essential items. However, few people look at the percentage of alcohol in antiseptics and alcoholic beverages. Rospotrebnadzor indicates, that in alcohol antiseptics “the content of ethyl alcohol should be at least 70%, and isopropyl alcohol - at least 60%.” The list of alcoholic drinks containing this percentage of alcohol is quite short: absinthe, moonshine, some types of chacha, American Everclear liqueur, as well as Polish Spiritus vodka.
The fact that alcohol does not kill brain cells proved in 1993 by Danish scientists. The researchers obtained brain samples from 22 people, half of whom regularly abused alcohol, and the other half led a healthier lifestyle. Human cortex consists of of four parts: neocortex (occupies 95.6% and is responsible for higher nervous functions - thinking and speech), archicortex (occupies 2.2%, emotions, memory, attention), paleocortex (0.6%, smell) and mesocortex (1.6%, paralimbic system).
So, in the neocortex, the most significant part of the cerebral cortex in terms of volume, the number of nerve cells (neurons) in both groups of citizens was approximately the same in different sections. This one observation immediately disproved the idea that drinking alcohol kills brain cells.
However, there were still differences in the brains of drunkards and teetotalers. Drinkers have archicortex structures had 30% lower density (weight/volume ratio), and their white matter density was 10% lower than that of the nondrinking control group. The white matter does not contain neurons, but consists of only from their processes - axons and glial cells. It was the axons that were damaged by lifetime alcohol consumption. Main function axon - transfer of information between neighboring neurons, and in the archicortex located the hippocampus, which is responsible for recording memories “on the hard drive” and retrieving them from there when necessary. This observation is consistent with the clinical picture alcoholic Korsakoff syndrome, when, against the background of alcoholism and vitamin B1 deficiency, the patient develops characteristic fixation amnesia (inability to remember new things with good preservation of previous memories) and confabulation (false memories). However, alcohol damage affects only the mentioned areas of the brain. Neither the occipital lobe (visual center), nor the vestibular apparatus (located not in the brain at all, but in the inner ear), nor the moral center (an area of the brain unknown to scientists, but discovered by bloggers) suffers. Moreover, due to alcohol abuse, rotting does not occur. Frequent hangover syndrome - morning headache - explained dehydration and intoxication.
At the same time, Danish scientists have come to encouraging results for people who already drink conclusions: Stopping alcohol abuse can give neurons the opportunity to restore lost connections, compensating for losses. However, recovery is not possible at any stage - Korsakoff syndrome, which usually occurs in the third stage of alcoholism, is bad amenable treatment, and complete recovery of such patients is unlikely. It is important to remember that we are talking about chronic and systematic alcohol abuse, and not about a glass of wine or even several taken on weekends and holidays.
Conclusions of Danish scientists confirmed in 2011, another group of researchers. They went further and injected ethanol directly into the neurons of experimental rats. Alcohol temporarily blocked the transmission of information, but did not kill the cells. Other studies demonstrate and at all positive the effect of moderate doses of alcohol on the body - it reduces the risk of age-related dementia and the development of Alzheimer's disease in old age. It is also interesting that for all its negative impact on anti-retrograde memory (in this case, remembering events that occurred after consumption), alcohol capable improve retrograde memory (that is, memory of events that occurred before use).
Moreover, to prove this hypothesis, tests were not carried out in a laboratory with a strictly limited dose of consumption. Participants took memory cards home and drank the drink and in the quantity that they themselves considered necessary. The most effective dose for improving memory was a dose approximately equal in alcohol content to two shots of vodka (82.59 g), but no significant difference was found between the different drinks. The control group that consumed soft drinks showed weaker results. But even when drinking alcohol to improve memory, it is worth considering the condition of your liver, as well as other organs that it could theoretically damage.
Thus, alcohol is not able to destroy the neurons themselves, much less promote their passage from the brain to the urinary tract. At the same time, systematic alcohol abuse can lead to brain damage, some of which are almost irreversible.
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