It’s a well-known fact that drinking too much alcohol can have a serious impact on your health, including damaging your liver. But how much is too much? For conditions such as liver cirrhosis, that’s usually more than 21 units of alcohol a week—around two bottles of wine a week or one and a half pints of beer a day. The United Kingdom’s Chief Medical Officer recommends that adults don’t drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week to keep the risk of health problems low.
However, the liver isn’t the only organ that can be damaged by drinking—the brain can be damaged, too. Drinking over the current United Kingdom low-risk guidelines is associated with an increased risk of dementia. And a recent study, published in Scientific Reports, found that even moderate drinking is associated with decreased brain volume.
