Alcohol: the length of time you should stop drinking to repair the brain

This no longer needs to be proven: alcohol is toxic for almost all organs, especially those that are very vascularized as liver, heart, lungs and brain. Its chronic consumption alters brain structure and function which makes it more difficult to stop using. “People with alcohol use disorders tend to have thinning in certain regions of their cerebral cortex as the prefrontal cortex, brain layer essential for many cognitive functions (like learning the memoryproblem solving,establish a reasoning)”, report American researchers in a study published in the journal Alcohol end of August 2023. For example, an altered prefrontal cortex by alcohol may become less active.*

The brain can “regain cortical thickness”

But can we repair this damage? To find out, scientists followed 88 peoplerecruited in American clinics in the “addiction” department between 2001 and 2013. For comparison, they studied a control group of 45 people who had never had an alcohol use disorder. The state of their brains was analyzed by brain scan after a week of abstinence, 1 month then 7 months. Result: the researchers revealed the length of time you should no longer drink alcohol to hope repair brain damage. People who stopped drinking completely gained cortical thickness over time, faster during the first month and for 7.3 months (i.e. 7 months and 10 days)after which the thickness was comparable to people without alcohol use disorders.

Less recovery in hypertensives and smokers

On the other hand, the study showed poorer recovery in certain parts of the brain in:

► People suffering fromhigh blood pressure

► People with high cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia)

► People smoking during the period of abstinence

Conversely, no significant relationship was found between changes in cortical thickness and taking drugs other than alcohol, psychiatric disorders or smoking prior to the period of abstinence.

“A new understanding of brain recovery after stopping alcohol”

Previous research has shown that certain regions can recover when a person stops drinking, but without specifying to what extent or how quickly brain healing was occurring. The results of this new study allow a new understanding of brain recovery after stopping alcohol. But due to the small number and lack of diversity of participants, they cannot be generalized. It is also important to note that these results do not indicate whether the changes had an effect on brain function. “Larger studies are needed to examine neurocognitive and psychosocial correlates of cortical thickness recovery during sustained abstinence“, write the researchers who also point out that they did not take into account all the parameters that could have affected their results such as genetics, physical activity and liver and lung health.