Alcohol consumption is associated with structural changes in various organ systems: A population-based study in UK Biobank

Abstract

AbstractExcessive 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. We assessed global effects 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. 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 also was 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. 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.