Long-Term Alcohol Use at a Young Age Causes Memory Problems Due to Vitamin B1 Deficiency!

Continuous and high-amount alcohol use causes serious damage not only to all organs but also to the brain, our executive organ...

We spoke with Dr. Gülümser Kızıltaş Tokmak, Specialist in Neurology at Hisar Hospital Intercontinental, about the negative effects of alcohol use on the brain.

Excessive Alcohol Consumption Triggers a Series of Events Leading to Brain Cell Death!

Continuous and high-amount consumption of alcoholic beverages causes very serious side effects on the Central Nervous System as well as on all organs. Initially, effects such as drowsiness, excessive euphoria, difficulty controlling movements, and imbalance may occur; as the dose increases, side effects ranging from clouding of consciousness to death can appear. Studies have shown that alcohol consumption triggers neuronal death in the brain. The brain regions called the cerebellum and the hippocampus (the memory center) are the areas most sensitive to alcohol. In particular, a group of cells in the cerebellar cortex called Purkinje cells are the cells most sensitive to alcohol. Long-term alcohol use causes damage to the extensions that allow information exchange between these cells, expansion of intracellular organelles, a decrease in the number of these cells, and impairment of their function. The harmful effect of alcohol on brain cells initiates a series of events that lead to cell death. Furthermore, studies have shown that another reason why long-term, high-amount alcohol use triggers brain cell death is the harmful effect of ethanol on carbon metabolism, which plays a critical role in the synthesis of essential precursor substances involved in DNA repair and synthesis. In this case, since DNA repair, renewal and the maintenance of integrity cannot be sustained, the result is the death of neurons.

In developing children, chronic alcohol use greatly affects the region responsible for memory called the hippocampus. With long-term alcohol use, a clinical picture called Wernicke's Encephalopathy emerges, characterized by memory problems, imbalance, vision problems, personality changes, hallucinations, and loss of alertness, due to deficiency of thiamine (B1) vitamin. Another condition, in which there are no alertness deficits but memory deficits are more prominent, is called Korsakoff Syndrome (a mental disorder resulting from poisoning by organic and inorganic substances. It involves not fully recalling recent events, describing situations that never happened as if they had occurred, and a disturbance of orientation in time, place and person).

In some studies conducted on rats, it has been shown that, in addition to vitamin B1 (thiamine), vitamin C and methionine, a so-called hormone, may also be effective against the side effects of chronic alcohol use.