Binge Drinking Damages Memory for Days
A new study has found that teenagers who engage in binge drinking risk absent-mindedness and forgetfulness for days afterward.
The researchers, from Northumbria and Keele universities, conducted memory tests comparing the performance of 26 binge drinkers with 34 non-bingers, all between 17 and 19 years of age. An analysis of the results found the drinkers fared worse.
For the study, binge drinking was defined as at least eight units per session for a man and six for a woman, consumed once or twice a week. The researchers said the binge drinkers in the study consumed, on average, 30 units in just two sessions.
The team presented their findings at the British Psychological Society conference, and said that binge drinking could be harming developing brains.
Binge drinking is already known to interfere with a person’s memories of past events. A spokesman for the charity Addaction said drinking at dangerous levels is putting some young people at risk.
The teenagers in the study were tested three or four days after their last drinking session, long enough for their bodies to be free of alcohol. They were asked to answer questions about how often they forgot to carry out intended tasks, such as meeting with friends.
Then, the participants were shown a video of a shopping trip after being given a couple of minutes to memorize a set of tasks prompted by various cues in the film, such as remembering to check their bank accounts after seeing a person in the film sitting on a bench, or sending a text message to a friend at a certain shop.
Dr. Thomas Heffernan of the University of Northumbria, who led the study, told BBC News, "We found no differences between binge drinkers and non-binge drinkers in the self-reporting questionnaires, but when it came to the video the binge drinkers recalled significantly less than the non-binge drinkers.
"Although from their own reports they appeared to have good memories, they didn’t perform as well in the video test.
"The binge drinkers recalled up to a third less of the items, a significant difference."
Heffernan said it was possible that the hippocampus or pre-frontal cortex regions of the brain were being impaired.
"There is evidence that excess alcohol and binge drinking in particular damages parts of the brain that underpin everyday memory,” he explained.
"Not only may these teenagers be harming their memory, if their brains are still developing they could be storing up problems for the future."
A spokesman for the charity Addaction told BBC News, "While official figures show fewer young people are drinking overall, a small group of young people is drinking earlier in life and at dangerously high levels.
"Many of these young people are still at primary school and are drinking more than twice the recommended limit for adult women, with uncertain consequences for their future development."
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