Smoking Intensifies Alcohol-Induced Brain Damage

A recent study has found that cigarette smoking can both exacerbate alcohol-induced injury as well as independently cause brain damage.

"While the effects of cigarette smoking on the heart, lungs, central and peripheral vascular systems, and its carcinogenic properties have been studied for many years in humans, very little is known about its effects on the brain and its functions,” stated Dr. Timothy C. Durazzo, a neuropsychologist and neuroscience researcher at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center (CA, USA).

The compounds most often used by alcohol-dependent people are tobacco products; about 30% of alcohol-dependent individuals report smoking regularly. It is know that smokers are inclined to consume more alcohol than nonsmokers. It is also known that chronic alcohol dependence can damage alcoholics' brains, specifically the frontal lobes, which are significantly involved in higher-order cognitive functions including reasoning, problem-solving, abstraction, planning, foresight, short-term memory, and emotional regulation.

The study, published in the December 2004 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, compared 24, one-week-abstinent alcoholics (14 smokers, 10 nonsmokers) in treatment with 26 light-drinking control subjects (seven smokers, 19 nonsmokers) with magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging measurements of typical brain metabolites in white and gray matter of the main lobes, ganglia, basal, midbrain, and cerebella vermis.

"Our studies show that this exacerbation of the alcohol-induced brain damage is most prominent in the frontal lobes of individuals studied early in treatment,” remarked Dr. Durazzo. Cigarette smoking, separate of alcohol consumption, was also found to have undesirable effects on neuronal viability and cell membranes in the midbrain and on cell membranes of the cerebella vermis. "We also observed that higher smoking severity among smoking recovering alcoholics was associated with lower N-acetylaspartate levels in lenticular nuclei and thalamus, areas also involved in motor functions,” said Dr. Durazzo. N-acetylaspartate is an amino acid derivative and its concentration is utilized as a measure of neuronal viability.