Drinking just a couple beers throughout the week may be hurting your health more than you think: Even moderate drinking can damage your brain, new research from the University of Oxford in the U.K. suggests.
People who drank more—at least 17 beers a week—showed even more deterioration in that brain region. They were nearly six times as likely to show atrophy in their hippocampus than those who didn’t drink at all.
Interestingly, there was no link between light drinkers and brain deterioration, showing that there doesn’t seem to be any brain benefit to drinking just a little bit.
Plus, the more alcohol people drank, the poorer their density of white matter—a part of the brain necessary for cognitive function—and the greater their decline in specific language skills.
Alcohol and its byproducts are toxic to nerve cells in your brain, and can cause structural damage in important areas of your brain like the hippocampus that are used in daily mental functions, the researchers say.
This suggests that even drinking within the recommended alcohol guidelines—no more than two drinks a day for men—may still contribute to some brain problems. In fact, here’s how drinking just a little booze each day may be killing you
