(CNN) There is no such thing as a “safe” level of drinking, with increased consumption of alcohol associated with poorer brain health, according to a new study.
In an observational study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers from the University of Oxford studied the relationship between the self-reported alcohol intake of some 25,000 people in the UK, and their brain scans.
The researchers noted 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 via email.