Alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with structural changes in multiple organ systems.
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background:
Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with damage to various organs, but its multi-organ effects have not been characterised across the usual range of alcohol drinking in a large general population sample.
Methods:
We assessed global effect sizes of alcohol consumption on quantitative magnetic resonance imaging phenotypic measures of the brain, heart, aorta, and liver of UK Biobank participants who reported drinking alcohol.
Results:
We found a monotonic association of higher alcohol consumption with lower normalised brain volume across the range of alcohol intakes (–1.7 × 10−3 ± 0.76 × 10−3 per doubling of alcohol consumption, p=3.0 × 10−14). Alcohol consumption was also associated directly with measures of left ventricular mass index and left ventricular and atrial volume indices. Liver fat increased by a mean of 0.15% per doubling of alcohol consumption.
Conclusions:
Our results imply that there is not a ‘safe threshold’ below which there are no toxic effects of alcohol. Current public health guidelines concerning alcohol consumption may need to be revisited.
Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with damage to various organs, but its multi-organ effects have not been characterised across the usual range of alcohol drinking in a large general population sample.
Methods:
We assessed global effect sizes of alcohol consumption on quantitative magnetic resonance imaging phenotypic measures of the brain, heart, aorta, and liver of UK Biobank participants who reported drinking alcohol.
Results:
We found a monotonic association of higher alcohol consumption with lower normalised brain volume across the range of alcohol intakes (–1.7 × 10−3 ± 0.76 × 10−3 per doubling of alcohol consumption, p=3.0 × 10−14). Alcohol consumption was also associated directly with measures of left ventricular mass index and left ventricular and atrial volume indices. Liver fat increased by a mean of 0.15% per doubling of alcohol consumption.
Conclusions:
Our results imply that there is not a ‘safe threshold’ below which there are no toxic effects of alcohol. Current public health guidelines concerning alcohol consumption may need to be revisited.
Date Issued
2021-06-01
Date Acceptance
2021-05-04
Citation
eLife, 2021, 10, pp.1-15
ISSN
2050-084X
Publisher
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
Start Page
1
End Page
15
Journal / Book Title
eLife
Volume
10
Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Author(s). Evangelou et al.
This article is distributed under
the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use
and redistribution provided that
the original author and source are
credited.
This article is distributed under
the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use
and redistribution provided that
the original author and source are
credited.
License URL
Sponsor
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust- BRC Funding
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
UK DRI Ltd
UK DRI Ltd
UK DRI Ltd
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Identifier
https://elifesciences.org/articles/65325
Grant Number
RDF03
MR/L01341X/1
MR/T502613/1
EP/N014529/1
N/A
4050641385
N/A
4050641385
Subjects
alcohol consumption
aorta
brain
epidemiology
global health
heart
imaging
liver
none
0601 Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-06-01