A new study
has found that there is no such thing as a “safe” level of drinking.
In the observational study carried out by researchers from the University of Oxford, scientists studied the relationship between the self-reported alcohol intake of some 25,000 people in the UK, and their brain scans.
They found
that drinking had an effect on the brain’s gray matter — regions in the brain
that make up “important bits where information is processed,” according to lead
author Anya Topiwala, a senior clinical researcher at Oxford.
“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 explained.
“Whilst
alcohol only made a small contribution to this (0.8%), it was a greater
contribution than other ‘modifiable’ risk factors,” she said, explaining that
modifiable risk factors are “ones you can do something about, in contrast to
aging.”
The
scientists also investigated whether certain drinking patterns, beverage types
and other health conditions made a difference to the impact of alcohol on brain
health.
They found
that there was no “safe” level of drinking — meaning that consuming any amount
of alcohol was worse than not drinking it.
They also
found no evidence that the type of drink such as wine, spirits or beer affected
the harm done to the brain.
Scientists
also found out that certain characteristics, such as high blood pressure,
obesity or binge-drinking, could put people at higher risk.
“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,” she
added.
Alcohol was
the leading risk factor for disease and premature death in men and women between
the ages of 15 and 49 worldwide in 2016, accounting for nearly one in 10
deaths, according to a study published in The Lancet in 2018.
“While we
can’t yet say for sure whether there is ‘no safe level’ of alcohol regarding
brain health at the moment, it has been known for decades that heavy drinking
is bad for brain health,” Sadie Boniface, head of research at the UK’s
Institute of Alcohol Studies, told CNN.
The research
has not yet been peer reviewed.
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