Just one standard drink a day can 'permanently damage' the human brain, study finds

It's unwelcome news heading into the weekend, but new research has found that having just one standard drink a day can permanently damage your brain.

A study of almost 21,000 people, published yesterday in the journal PLOS Medicine, linked the consumption of seven or more standard drinks per week to higher iron levels in the brain.

Iron accumulation in the brain has been linked to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and could be involved in alcohol-related cognitive decline.

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The study's 20,965 participants from the UK Biobank reported their own alcohol consumption, and their brains given MRI scans.

Almost 7000 also had MRI scans on their livers to assess levels of systemic iron.

All the participants completed a series of simple tests to assess cognitive and motor function.

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Although 2.7 per cent classed themselves as non-drinkers, the average intake was around 18 standard drinks a week, which translates to about seven and a half cans of beer or six large glasses of wine - and yes, even though it's British beer, the numbers still count down under.

The team, headed by Anya Topiwala of Oxford University, found that alcohol consumption above seven standard drinks per week was associated with markers of higher iron in the basal ganglia, a group of brain regions associated with control of motor movements, procedural learning, eye movement, cognition, emotion, and more.

The participants' average age was 55 years old and 48.6 per cent were female.

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However, researchers did caution that it was possible alcohol-induced brain changes were being conflated with changes caused by other things.

Nonetheless, they said, given the prevalence of moderate drinking, even small associations can have a substantial impact across whole populations, and there could be benefits in interventions to reduce consumption.