More than eight drinks a week for women, more than 15 for men, kept up over a long stretch. That is the line Nagalakshmi Balasubramanian draws for heavy drinking. A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Florida, she told a conference in San Antonio, Texas, that years at that level may leave a lasting mark on the brain.
Balasubramanian, who goes by Lakshmi, spoke on 24 June 2026 at the Research Society on Alcohol’s 49th yearly gathering. Her talk was titled “Sex-Specific Effects of Alcohol Metabolism on Alzheimer’s Disease.” The experiments were run on mice, and they center on a gene best known for putting a red face on some drinkers.
The flush gene
When the body processes alcohol, it makes acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct. An enzyme called ALDH2 usually clears it fast. People who carry a variant named ALDH2*2 clear it poorly. That variant is behind the “alcohol flush reaction,” the red, hot cheeks that follow a drink for some.
The flush, she argues, is only what shows. “People carrying this variant struggle to clear acetaldehyde efficiently, allowing this toxic compound to linger like an unwelcome guest and fuel inflammation and oxidative stress throughout the body, including the brain,” she said.
She was careful not to oversell it. Carrying the variant is no guarantee of Alzheimer’s. It “may stack the deck toward accelerated aging and neurodegeneration,” she said, mostly for people with years of heavy exposure to alcohol.
What the mice were asked to show
She worked with mice that carry ALDH2*2. The question was what acetaldehyde from heavy, chronic drinking does to tau, to inflammation and to the way cells handle energy. Tau is a protein whose buildup is a recognized hallmark of Alzheimer’s. She split the results by sex, which matters because women are hit by Alzheimer’s more often than men, as mindbodygreen pointed out. She also tested whether raising ALDH2 activity lets the brain fight back against the damage.
Drinking, she said, sets off inflammation, oxidative stress and metabolic trouble. It also feeds depression, anxiety and withdrawal from other people, changes that can be early signs of Alzheimer’s. “In many cases, the writing may be on the wall long before memory loss appears.”
The picture is complicated, and she said so. “Alcohol-related brain damage is highly complex,” she said. Genes, metabolism, inflammation and aging of the brain tangle together in ways scientists are just starting to untangle. Animal work offers a window, in her words, onto how alcohol rewires the brain. She hopes early molecular red flags lead to earlier detection, a clearer list of who is at high risk, and treatments that might slow or even stop neurodegenerative disease. Mice, mindbodygreen noted, have more than 95% of their genes in common with people, yet they are far simpler to manipulate and watch.
Sources
- Chronic Heavy Alcohol Use May Accelerate Biological Pathways Linked to Brain Aging and Alzheimer's Disease (Newswise, Research Society on Alcohol)
- This Genetic Variant May Make You More Vulnerable To Alcohol-Related Brain Damage (mindbodygreen)
