Is it true that alcohol kills brain cells?

There is an opinion that alcohol destroys neurons. Some literally argue that "the one who drinks hips in the next morning with their own brains." We decided to check whether alcohol is actually able to do such significant harm to the brain that uses it.

On the destructive effect of alcohol on the brain write many Media And Bloggers. For example, Excerpts From one such message: “Alcohol ... is absorbed into the blood, with blood flow goes into the brain, and a person begins to intensively destroy the cerebral cortex”, “After each so -called moderate drink, a new cemetery of the dead nerve cells of the neuron appears in the head”. And so Describe Long -term consequences: “The process of stupefying in different people proceeds in different ways: in some of all, the occipital part is destroyed, the whistibular apparatus, they are lining from side to side, others are destroyed by a moral center, they say that he would have done a sober one, a person becomes crazy of the brain that he is dying for behavior .. the third of the people is destroyed instead of the cells instead of the cells. cat. They had to remember yesterday - a scar in a finger thick. What happens to these killed cells - these cells of human tissue, a temperature under the skull of 36 degrees. These cells begin to rot and spread and these rotting cells of the brain are the cause of the headache in the drunkard. But so that these rotting cells do not poison the whole brain and do not kill a person forced the body forced to roll a huge amount of fluid under the skull, and this fluid presses the head with a drunk with a hangover. This liquid dissolves the killed cells and the next morning through the genitourinary system merges them into the city sewage ”(spelling and punctuation is preserved).

Supporters of the idea that alcohol brutally straightens out with the cells of our brain, give as an example the subject of the first necessity of antiseptics. However, few people look at the percentage of alcohol in antiseptics and alcoholic beverages. Rospotrebnadzor Indicatesthat in alcohol antiseptics "the content of ethyl alcohol should be at least 70%, and isopropyl alcohol - at least 60%." A list of alcoholic beverages containing such a share of alcohol is enough short: absinthe, moonshine, some types of chachi, American liquor EverClear, as well as Polish vodka Spiritus. 

That alcohol does not kill brain cells, proved In 1993, Danish scientists. Researchers received 22 people at their disposal, half of which regularly abused alcohol, and the other half led a healthier lifestyle. Human cortex consists of Of the four parts: neocortex (occupies 95.6%and is responsible for the highest nervous functions - thinking and speech), archicorth (occupies 2.2%, emotions, memory, attention), paleoocortex (0.6%, smell) and mesocortex (1.6%, paralymbical system).

So, in the neocortex, the most significant in the volume of part of the cerebral cortex, the number of nerve cells (neurons) in both groups of citizens was approximately the same in different departments. This observation alone immediately refuted the idea that the alcohol consumed kills brain cells.

However, there were still differences in the brain of drunkards and teetotalers. The drinking structures of the archicorth had At a 30% lower density (weight / volume ratio), also the density of their white matter was 10% lower than that of a non -notch control group. White has no neurons in its composition, and consists of Only from their processes - axons and glial cells. It was the axons that were damaged by the intravital use of alcohol. The main one function Axon - the transmission of information between neighboring neurons, and in the archicorth Located The hippocampus, which is responsible for the recording of the memoirs “on a hard drive” and extracting them from there if necessary. This observation is consistent with the clinical picture alcohol Korsakovsky syndromeWhen, against the background of alcoholism and vitamin B1 deficiency, the patient develops characteristic fixation amnesia (inability to remember new with good preservation of previous memories) and confabulation (false memories). However, alcoholic lesions relate only to the mentioned zones of the brain. Neither the occipital share (the diverse center), nor the vestibular apparatus (located at all in the brain, but in the inner ear), or the moral center (unknown to the scientist, but the brain zone found by bloggers) suffer. Moreover, due to alcohol abuse, no decay occurs. Frequent hangover syndrome - morning headache - Explained dehydration and intoxication.

At the same time, Danish scientists came to encouraging people who were already drinkers conclusions: The cessation of alcohol abuse can give neurons the opportunity to restore lost connections by compensating the losses. However, restoration is not possible at any stage - the Korsakovsky syndrome, which usually occurs at the third stage of alcoholism, is bad succumbs The treatment, and the complete recovery of such patients is unlikely. It is important to remember that this is precisely about chronic and systematic abuse of alcohol, and not about a glass of wine or even several, accepted on the weekend and on a holiday.

Conclusions of Danish scientists Confirmed In 2011, another group of researchers. They went on and introduced ethanol right into the neurons of experimental rats. Alcohol temporarily blocked the transmission of information, but did not kill the cells. Other research Demonstrate And at all Positive The action of moderate doses of alcohol on the body - it reduces the risk of age dementia and the development of Alzheimer's disease in old age. It is also interesting that with all its negative impact on anti -justrograd memory (in this case, on the memorization of events that occurred after consumption), alcohol capable improve retrograde memory (that is, the memory of events that occurred before use).

Moreover, to prove this hypothesis, the tests were not carried out in the laboratory with a strictly limited dose of use. The participants took the cards to remember home and drank the drink and in the amount that they themselves considered it necessary. The most effective for improving memory was the dose approximately equal in terms of alcohol to two stacks of vodka (82.59 g), but there was no significant difference between different drinks. The control group that used non -alcoholic drinks showed weaker results. But, even drinking alcohol in order to improve memory, it is worth considering the state of his liver, as well as other organs to which he theoretically can damage. 

Thus, alcohol is not able to destroy the neurons themselves, and even more so contribute to their passage from the brain to urinary tract. At the same time, systematic abuse of alcohol can lead to brain lesions, some of which are almost irreversible.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that human nerve cells are not restored?
2. On the benefits and dangers of alcohol