This may put a damper on happy hour.
According to a new study, there is no “safe” level of drinking, and increasing your consumption of alcohol can have a negative effect on the brain.
Researchers from the University of Oxford analyzed data from about 25,000 people in the United Kingdom who gave reports on their drinking habits. According to CNN, the scientists compared the information by also performing brain scans on the participants.
Anya Topiwala, a senior clinical researcher at Oxford and lead author, confirmed that drinking affected the brain’s gray matter, regions in the brain that make up “important bits where information is processed.”
“The more people drank, the less the volume of their gray matter,” Topiwala said. "Brain volume reduces with age and more severely with dementia. Smaller brain volume also predicts worse performance on memory testing," she added.
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“Whilst alcohol only made a small contribution to this (0.8%), it was a greater contribution than other ‘modifiable’ risk factors,” she said. Modifiable risk factors are those that you can alter such as smoking or cholesterol level.
The type of alcohol peole drank also did not matter, as they saw no difference between beer, wine or spirits. Drinking any alcohol was worse than not drinking at all.
However, certain health conditions, such as high blood pressure or obesity, could more negatively affect one's brain health when combined with drinking.
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“So many people drink ‘moderately,’ and think this is either harmless or even protective,” Topiwala said.
“As we have yet to find a ‘cure’ for neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, knowing about factors that can prevent brain harm is important for public health."
Tony Rao, a visiting clinical fellow in Old Age Psychiatry at King's College London, agreed with the study's assertions.
"Even at levels of low-risk drinking," Rao said, "there is evidence that alcohol consumption plays a larger role in damage to the brain than previously thought."
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