Alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with structural changes in multiple organ systems.

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 ventric

SUBMITTER: Evangelou E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8192119 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature