CLOSE Scientists have linked moderate or heavy drinking to early symptoms of memory loss. Angeli Kakade (@angelikakade) has the story. Buzz60 
 
 Moderate drinking is associated with worrisome brain changes in a new study. (Photo: Garik_Klimov, Getty Images/iStockphoto) 
 
 Here’s one more reason to think before you drink: even a modest amount of booze might be bad for aging brains. 
 
 A new study published Tuesday in the medical journal BMJ says moderate drinkers were more likely than abstainers or light drinkers to develop worrisome brain changes that might signal eventual memory loss. They also were more likely to show rapid slippage on a language test, though not on several other cognitive tests. 
 
 Moderate drinking in the British study was defined at a level that, in the United States, would equal 8 to 12 small glasses of wine, bottles of beer or shots of liquor each week. 
 
 “Many people drink this way,” and previous studies have suggested they might actually be helping their brains, said lead researcher Anya Topiwala, a clinical lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Oxford. 
 
 The new study casts doubt on that idea, suggesting harm from moderate drinking and no help from light drinking, she said. The study did not look at heavy, abusive drinking, but that already is firmly linked with brain damage and dementia, she noted. 
 
 For the study, she and her colleagues examined three decades of records from 527 British civil servants who are part of a long-running health study. The volunteers, who are predominantly white middle class men, took brief cognitive tests and recorded their drinking histories on multiple occasions, starting at an average age of 43. 
 
 The researchers brought the volunteers in for brain scans, repeated the brief cognitive tests and administered a more extensive battery of memory and thinking tests. 
 
 For the most part, light to moderate drinkers and abstainers performed similarly when they were matched for age, sex, education, social class, physical activity, smoking and other factors. 
 
 There was one exception: moderate to heavy drinkers showed more rapid declines on a language fluency test. The test gives people a minute to name as many words as they can, beginning with a particular letter. 
 
 The brain scans also showed differences. Most notably, the heaviest drinkers were most likely to have clear shrinkage of a part of the brain called the hippocampus, a change that can precede or accompany dementia. Even moderate drinkers were three times more likely than abstainers to show hippocampal shrinkage, the researchers said. 
 
 An important caveat: The study is observational, so it cannot prove cause and effect. It is possible that frequent drinkers had other things in common that accounted for the brain and language changes. 
 
 Still, at this point, “I wouldn’t recommend light to moderate drinking as a strategy to avoid cognitive decline,” Topiwala said. And, she said, it’s not clear how much drinking might be safe from a brain health standpoint. 
 
 U.S. guidelines recommend no more than 1 drink a day for women and 2 drinks a day for men, citing uncertain heart benefits and known risks, including traffic accidents, violence, and a link with breast cancer. Many countries, including the United Kingdom, recommend lower limits for men. 
 
 There is no health reason for anyone who does not drink to take up drinking, said Brian Downer, an assistant professor in the division of rehabilitation sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The new research is a good reminder that even moderate drinking can have health consequences, said Downer, who was not involved in the study. 
 
 But, he said, more research on cognitive effects is needed. And none of the findings suggests a need for total abstinence, he said. "You don’t have to feel that you have to completely quit drinking to have a healthy lifestyle.” 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2sQmSES ||||| Moderate alcohol consumption can impair cognitive function, says study, countering suggestions that low levels of drinking can help protect the brain 
 
 Drinking even moderate amounts of alcohol can damage the brain and impair cognitive function over time, researchers have claimed. 
 
 While heavy drinking has previously been linked to memory problems and dementia, previous studies have suggested low levels of drinking could help protect the brain. But the new study pushes back against the notion of such benefits. 
 
 “We knew that drinking heavily for long periods of time was bad for brain health, but we didn’t know at these levels,” said Anya Topiwala, a clinical lecturer in old age psychiatry at the University of Oxford and co-author of the research. 
 
 Alcohol is a direct cause of seven ​​forms of cancer, finds study Read more 
 
 Writing in the British Medical Journal, researchers from the University of Oxford and University College London, describe how they followed the alcohol intake and cognitive performance of 550 men and women over 30 years from 1985. At the end of the study the team took MRI scans of the participants’ brains. 
 
 None of the participants were deemed to have an alcohol dependence, but levels of drinking varied. After excluding 23 participants due to gaps in data or other issues, the team looked at participants’ alcohol intake as well as their performance on various cognitive tasks, as measured at six points over the 30 year period. 
 
 The team also looked at the structure of the participants’ brains, as shown by the MRI scan, including the structure of the white matter and the state of the hippocampus – a seahorse-shaped area of the brain associated with memory. 
 
 After taking into account a host of other factors including age, sex, social activity and education, the team found that those who reported higher levels of drinking were more often found to have a shrunken hippocampus, with the effect greater for the right side of the brain. 
 
 While 35% of those who didn’t drink were found to have shrinkage on the right side of the hippocampus, the figure was 65% for those who drank on average between 14 and 21 units a week, and 77% for those who drank 30 or more units a week. 
 
 The structure of white matter was also linked to how much individuals drank. “The big fibre tracts in the brain are cabled like electrical wire and the insulation, if you like, on those wires was of a poorer quality in people who were drinking more,” said Topiwala. 
 
 
 
 In addition, those who drank more were found to fare worse on a test of lexical fluency. “[That] is where you ask somebody to name as many words as they can within a minute beginning with a certain letter,” said Topiwala. People who drank between seven and 14 units a week were found to have 14% greater reduction in their performance on the task over 30 years, compared to those who drank just one or fewer units a week. 
 
 By contrast, no effects were found for other tasks such as word recall or those in which participants were asked to come up with words in a particular category, such as ‘animals.’ 
 
 Expert reaction to the the study was mixed. While Elizabeth Coulthard, consultant senior lecturer in dementia neurology at the University of Bristol, described the research as robust, she cautioned that as the study was observational, it does not prove that alcohol was causing the damage to the brain. 
 
 Daily glass of wine increases a woman's cancer risk, finds study Read more 
 
 In addition, the majority of the study’s participants were men, while reports of alcohol consumption are often inaccurate with people underestimating how much they drink – an effect that could have exaggerated the apparent impact of moderate amounts of alcohol. 
 
 Dr Doug Brown, director of research and development at Alzheimer’s Society said that the new research did not imply that individuals should necessarily turn teetotal, instead stressing that it was important to stick to recommended guidelines. 
 
 
 
 In 2016, the Department of Health introduced new alcohol guidelines in the UK, recommending that both men and women drink no more than 14 units of alcohol each week – the equivalent of about six pints of beer or seven 175ml glasses of wine. 
 
 “Although this research gives useful insight into the long-term effects that drinking alcohol may have on the brain, it does not show that moderate alcohol intake causes cognitive decline. However, the findings do contradict a common belief that a glass of red wine or champagne a day can protect against damage to the brain,” said Brown. ||||| (CNN) Drinking in moderation can help our health , some research has showed. Many doctors recommend a glass of wine or beer a night as part of diet plans such as the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet , which have been proven to keep your heart and brain healthy. However, a new study suggests that even moderate drinking may not be great for your brain. 
 
 As part of the study, which was published Wednesday in the BMJ , researchers looked at people's weekly alcohol intake from the Whitehall II study , which tracks disease and social behaviors in a group of British civil servants for 30 years. University of Oxford and University College London scientists studied how participants fared with regular brain function tests and an MRI. 
 
 What they noted was that the people who drank the most had the highest risk of hippocampal atrophy , a form of brain damage that can impact spatial navigation and can be associated with memory-loss conditions like Alzheimer's and dementia. The heavier drinkers saw a faster decline in language skills and had poorer white matter integrity , which is crucial to processing thoughts quickly. 
 
 If you're starting to worry and are afraid to drown your sorrows, note that there are many caveats, and more research needs to be done. Some experts suggest you shouldn't change your drinking behavior based on this one study, but the results of these brain scans and memory tests for moderate and lighter drinkers were not what researchers expected. 
 
 "We were surprised that the light to moderate drinkers didn't seem to have that protective effect," said study co-author Dr. Anya Topiwala , a clinical lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford. "These are people who are drinking at levels that many consider social drinkers, so they are not consuming a lot." 
 
 Even the heaviest of the drinkers aren't big nightly bingers. The "drank the most" group in this study consumed about 30 units of alcohol a week, with a unit considered to be 10 milliliters or 8 grams of pure alcohol. A medium glass of wine has about two units of alcohol, and so does a pint of some beers, depending on the alcohol content. 
 
 If you do the boozy math, the study's heaviest drinkers had a little more than two medium glasses of wine or two beers every night of the week. 
 
 The moderate group was drinking about 14 to 21 units of alcohol per week, or about a medium glass of wine each night, plus a little extra on the weekends. 
 
 Researchers discovered that the moderate group was three times more likely to have hippocampal atrophy compared with people who didn't drink at all. However, in the heavy and moderate drinkers, there is no evidence to show how clinically significant this change is, and there is no evidence linking this loss to any negative general cognitive effects, even the ones for which the participants were tested. 
 
 With the light drinkers, those who had a small glass of wine a night or up to seven units per week, researchers didn't see a significant difference compared with the abstainers, but they didn't see any protective qualities, either. 
 
 The abstainers may be one subject that needs further development, according to Eric Rimm , a professor of medicine and director for the program in cardiovascular epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 
 
 Rimm, who was not involved in the new study, has researched the impact of alcohol for years. He said that although the study has an interesting hypothesis, the abstainer group (22 men and 15 women) is tiny and may be throwing off the results. 
 
 If you are a moderate drinker, he said, you don't have to give up the booze based solely on this report. 
 
 "There are so many other lifestyle factors that are not taken into account in this study, like nutrition. Eating whole grains and fruits and vegetables have been linked with slower cognitive decline," Rimm said. Attributing mental decline to alcohol is too limited, he said. 
 
 Tom Dening, a professor of dementia research and Director of the Centre for Old Age and Dementia at the University of Nottingham, called the study "most impressive" and suggests it may be a good reminder that "perhaps we should all drink a bit less," but he also questioned its results. People typically are not honest about how much they really drink, he noted. 
 
 "People tend to underestimate their actual consumption, partly to appear more respectable," Dening said. "If actual consumption was under-reported, then the apparent adverse effects of modest amounts of alcohol could have been magnified." 
 
 Earlier studies have also shown that people tend to drink less as they age, said Carl Heneghan , director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the new research. 
 
 "These type of studies also cannot account for all the (factors), and therefore they cannot, and should not, conclude causation," Heneghan said. "Using all the available evidence provides a much more balanced approach for the public on deciding how much to drink." 
 
 Rimm wondered whether there were so few abstainers in the study because, after 30 years, they hadn't lived as long as the others. 
 
 When it comes to the brain, this is not the first research to question whether drinking even moderate amounts had an impact, though results have been mixed. One 2008 study found that unlike with the heart, for which alcohol has protective qualities, the more people drank, the smaller their total brain volume, meaning their brains aged faster. 
 
 Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. 
 
 "An observational study cannot truly prove that alcohol causes dementia, but the findings are in keeping with my clinical experience," said Dr. Elizabeth Coulthard , a consultant senior lecturer in Dementia Neurology at the University of Bristol who was not involved in the new research. "Hopefully this research will contribute to a greater understanding of true safe limits for alcohol consumption that ensure protection from future dementia. Until we have further studies, the good news is that low alcohol intake was not associated with brain or memory decline in this sample." 
 
 Topiwala said she and her co-authors want to try to replicate the results, particularly with a more diverse population. Most in this study were men with similar backgrounds, with generally higher IQs than the population as a whole, all factors that can affect the results. 
 
 "We think, though, this study asks some really important questions in an area that does have a knowledge gap," Topiwala said. ||||| Heavy drinkers are putting themselves at risk of dementia, according to the largest study of its kind ever conducted. 
 
 Research published in the Lancet Public Health journal provides powerful evidence that people who drink enough to end up in hospital are putting themselves at serious risk of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. It will also raise questions for moderate drinkers about the possible long-term consequences of their social habit. 
 
 The study, which used the French National Hospital Discharge database, looked at more than a million people diagnosed with dementia between 2008 and 2013. 
 
 Older people drinking too much could create NHS ‘timebomb’, says doctor Read more 
 
 More than a third – 38% of the 57,000 cases of early-onset dementia – were directly alcohol-related and 18% had an additional diagnosis of alcohol use disorders. Overall, alcohol use disorders were associated with a three times greater risk of all types of dementia. 
 
 Dr Sara Imarisio, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “As this study only looked at the people who had been admitted to hospital due to chronic heavy drinking, it doesn’t reveal the full extent of the link between alcohol use and dementia risk. Previous research has indicated that even moderate drinking may have a negative impact on brain health and people shouldn’t be under the impression that only drinking to the point of hospitalisation carries a risk.” 
 
 Experts said the new research should change attitudes. “What is most surprising about this paper is that it has taken us so long to recognise that alcohol misuse and dependence are such potent risk factors for the development of dementia,” said Robert Howard, professor of old age psychiatry at University College London. 
 
 
 
 “We have long known that alcohol is directly neurotoxic, thiamine deficiency in alcoholics devastates memory, alcohol-related conditions such as cirrhosis and epilepsy can damage the brain and that vascular brain damage is accelerated by alcohol. Surprisingly, we’ve not traditionally considered alcohol and its misuse as an important risk factor for dementia and we were clearly wrong not to have done so.” 
 
 Even moderate drinking can damage the brain, claim researchers Read more 
 
 The study was not set up to look at the effects of moderate drinking on people’s dementia risk. But the lead author, Dr Michaël Schwarzinger of the Translational Health Economics Network in France, warned that the research showed damage done to the brain by alcohol is never repaired. Heavy drinkers who had given up alcohol for a time did not reduce their dementia risk, even though they were less likely to die early. “It is very striking that for people who were heavy drinkers and had at least a period of abstinence, the level of risk of dementia is about the same,” he told the Guardian. 
 
 That is in line with imaging studies that have shown even moderate drinking has a permanent effect. A study published in the British Medical Journal last year found that those who drank 14-21 units a week had three times the normal odds of damage to that part of the brain concerned with memory. Guidance in the UK is not to drink more than 14 units a week. 
 
 Advice on alcohol and dementia has been confusing. Some studies have suggested that one or two units a day – perhaps a small glass of wine – could be protective. But Schwarzinger said they were small studies and he personally would question whether that can be so. 
 
 
 
 “Alcohol is a devastating problem, whatever the organ. Now we can add the brain to the list of liver, kidney and heart,” he said. 
 
 “A variety of measures are needed, such as reducing availability, increasing taxation, and banning advertising and marketing of alcohol, alongside early detection and treatment of alcohol use disorders.” 
 
 Prof Clive Ballard of the University of Exeter Medical School, UK, writing a commentary for the journal, said: “Their study is immensely important and highlights the potential of alcohol use disorders, and possibly alcohol consumption, as modifiable risk factors for dementia prevention … In our view, this evidence is robust and we should move forward with clear public health messages about the relationship between both alcohol use disorders and alcohol consumption, respectively, and dementia.” 
 
 Dr James Nicholls, director of policy and research development at Alcohol Research UK, said the concerns raised by the study were very serious. “If heavy alcohol use increases the risk of dementia then there are enormous social and economic implications,” he said. “We must recognise that good quality, widely accessible alcohol treatment has important long-term benefits, including reducing the levels of dementia in society. And we must invest in these services, reversing the trend of recent years.”
– A variety of studies have linked heavy drinking to brain damage and dementia, but a new one suggests moderate drinking might also hurt the brain and perhaps lead to memory loss. Contrary to studies suggesting drinking in moderation might actually be good for you, the latest in the British Medical Journal determined that middle-aged moderate drinkers who consumed between eight to 12 shots, bottles of beer, or small glasses of wine per week were more likely than light or non-drinkers to suffer a decline in language ability over a 30-year period, reports USA Today. Perhaps most concerning, moderate drinkers were also three times more likely than non-drinkers to experience a shrinking of the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory. In the study of 527 Brits, mostly middle-class men, researchers found that 35% of non-drinkers had experienced hippocampal atrophy after 30 years, compared to 65% of moderate drinkers and 77% of participants who drank the most, reports the Guardian. As hippocampal atrophy may be linked to dementia, moderate drinking, then, could be tied to future memory loss, reports CNN. Researchers, who expected light to moderate drinkers to be protected from cognitive decline, were "surprised," co-author Anya Topiwala explains. "These are people who are drinking at levels that many consider social drinkers, so they are not consuming a lot." While researchers took age, sex, social activity, and education into account, experts caution that other factors, like diet, may play a role. (Moderate drinking might also increase your breast cancer risk.)