It’s second nature for some folks to pour a glass of wine on a pleasant night or to pop open a can of beer throughout a sports activities occasion — however when does drinking grow to be an excessive amount of?
Heavy alcohol use, which researchers outlined as common alcohol consumption of three or more drinks per day, is linked to more severe mind bleeds (or a bleeding stroke) and earlier long-term mind harm, in accordance with a examine revealed November 5, within the journal Neurology.
“A bleeding stroke, or intracerebral hemorrhage, is when a blood vessel in the brain ruptures, causing blood to leak out and damage the surrounding brain tissue. Bleeding strokes account for about (15% to 20%) of all strokes,” Dr. Mitchell Elkind, chief science officer of mind well being and stroke on the American Heart Association, mentioned in an e-mail. He was not a part of the examine.
“The other kind of stroke, about 80%, is an ischemic stroke, in which a clot or blockage of the blood vessel occurs and there is a lack of blood flow to part of the brain, causing it to die from lack of oxygen and nutrients,” Elkind mentioned. “Bleeding strokes are typically more dangerous and disabling.”
Some 17% of adults within the United States binge drink and 6% drink closely, in accordance with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2024, 29.7 million Americans ages 12 and older had alcohol use dysfunction, a sample of extreme alcohol consumption that can cause impairment of bodily or psychological well being.
“People who were drinking an average of three glasses of alcohol per day had their brain bleeds on an average of 11 years younger than compared to people who were drinking less glasses of alcohol,” mentioned Dr. M. Edip Gurol, the examine’s lead creator.
In the United States, 795,000 people expertise a stroke every year, and 10% of these are bleeding strokes.
“Unfortunately, anyone — even children — can have a bleeding stroke. But the risks go up quickly with age, especially after age 55 or so,” mentioned Elkind, professor emeritus of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University. “The most important risk factor for brain hemorrhage overall is high blood pressure, or hypertension. Hypertension increases with age. Recently we have been seeing more strokes in younger people due to increasing obesity, diabetes, and hypertension in young adults.”
Nearly half of American adults, or 119.9 million folks, have hypertension or hypertension.
Some symptoms of hypertension embody complications, shortness of breath and nosebleeds.
“Another important cause of strokes in younger people is the use of illicit substances: so not just alcohol, but use of cocaine, methamphetamine and other stimulants, heroin and other injected drugs, can lead to strokes and brain hemorrhages,” Elkind mentioned. “Alcohol — and stimulants, in particular — can increase blood pressure, leading to higher risk of strokes of all types, including bleeding.”
Other than stroke, hypertension can additionally cause persistent kidney illness, coronary heart illness and artery illness.
“For patients who had a brain bleed or patients who have MRI markers of higher than usual brain bleeding risk such as brain microbleeds, I recommend them to completely stop alcohol intake or use it very sparingly,” mentioned Gurol, a vascular neurologist at Mass General Brigham, suggesting no more than as much as six occasions per 12 months and by no means exceeding more than a glass over 24 hours.
Elkind recommends getting your blood stress below management to assist forestall a stroke.
“Get it checked by a doctor or at a local pharmacy,” he mentioned, “and if elevated, get it under control through lifestyle change and medication, if needed.”
An straightforward approach to decrease blood stress is to do cardio workout routines, similar to walking. Following good walking form by standing tall together with your shoulders again and swinging your arms and working towards conscious or nasal breathing will assist regulate your physique.
Changes in your eating regimen, similar to reducing salt intake and following a Mediterranean diet, can additionally enhance coronary heart well being and decrease blood stress.
The new examine’s findings have been based mostly on knowledge collected from 1,600 adults with a median age of 75 who have been hospitalized for intracerebral hemorrhage. Participants have been all admitted sufferers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and have been predominantly White.
Since knowledge was collected retrospectively, it “could be biased by the occurrence of the hemorrhage itself: people or proxies may report higher levels of alcohol consumption after a life-changing event like a cerebral hemorrhage. This could lead to biased estimates of the effect,” Elkind mentioned. “In a true prospectively designed study, the data about alcohol consumption would be collected before the hemorrhage had occurred.”