If you’re one of those people liking their daily shots of alcohol, here is another good reason to quit or practice moderation. Researchers from Wellesley College, Mass., and colleagues discovered what other studies have previously suggested, namely that drinking excessively causes the brain to shrink. It is already known that our brain volume reduces in size by 1.9 percent every decade. In addition to this, the brain acquires white matter lesions as it gets older. These changes often accompany dementia and cognitive decline, background information in the study reveal. If we add alcohol and smoking to the equation, our brain might shrink even more, the researchers said.

“The take-home message is that, if you want a lot, you’re going to hurt your brain. This is something we knew, but this is a huge study that quantifies that,” said Rajesh Miranda, an associate professor of neuroscience and experimental therapeutics at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

This is not the case with moderate drinking, which was showed to decrease risk of cardiovascular disease, improve cognitive function and cut risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new study, conducted by Carol Ann Paul, of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, involved 1,839 adults average age 60 participating in the Framingham Offspring Study between 1999 and 2001. The study began back in 1971 as a continuation of the Framingham Heart Study. The participants were questioned about their alcohol intake per week, which further qualified them as abstainers, low drinkers (one to seven drinks per week), moderate drinkers (eight to 14 drinks per week), and heavy drinkers (more than 14 drinks a week). Overall, men were more likely to report being moderate or heavy drinkers. None of the study participants had evidence of clinical dementia or had suffered a stroke. At the end of the study, they underwent magnetic resonance imaging and a health examination.

The researchers found that almost 38 percent of men and 44 percent of women were low drinkers. But when measuring the brain volume of those falling in the category of heavy drinkers, the researchers found that their brain was smaller than in low drinkers. Overall, lower drinkers had brain volumes of 78 percent of their total cranial volume, abstainers had 78.6 percent, moderate drinkers 77.8 percent, while heavy drinkers had brain volumes of 77.3 percent. The association between drinking and brain volume was even stronger in women due to biological factors, including women’s smaller size and their vulnerability to the effects of alcohol.

“The public health effect of this study gives a clear message about the possible dangers of drinking alcohol. Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to confirm these results as well as to determine whether there are any functional consequences associated with increasing alcohol consumption,” the authors write in the October issue of the journal Archives of Neurology.