Drinking any amount of alcohol causes damage to the brain, study finds

Type of alcohol doesn’t matter

However, certain characteristics, such as high blood pressure, obesity or binge-drinking, could put people at higher risk, researchers added.

“So many people drink ‘moderately,’ and think this is either harmless or even protective,” Topiwala told CNN via email.

No safe limit

The risks of alcohol have long been known: Previous studies have found that there’s no amount of liquor, wine or beer that is safe for your overall health.

“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 via email.

“We also shouldn’t forget alcohol affects all parts of the body and there are multiple health risks,” said Boniface, who was not associated with the University of Oxford study.

Tony Rao, a visiting clinical fellow in Old Age Psychiatry at King’s College London, told CNN that given the large sample size, it was unlikely the study’s findings could have arisen by chance.

Rao said the study replicates previous research that has shown there is no safe limit in the level of alcohol consumption for its role in damage to the structure and function of the human brain.

“Previous research has found that subtle changes which demonstrate damage to the brain can present in ways that are not immediately detectable on routine testing of intellectual function and can progress unchecked until they present with more noticeable changes in memory,” he said.

“Even at levels of low-risk drinking,” he said, “there is evidence that alcohol consumption plays a larger role in damage to the brain than previously thought. The (Oxford) study found that this role was greater than many other modifiable risk factors, such as smoking.”