A Small Amount of Alcohol Damages the Brain

A new study has pinpointed exactly how much alcohol can be safely consumed before it causes damage to your brain. And it's a whole lot.

In fact, researchers with the University of Oxford have found that even a tiny amount of alcohol causes "adverse" effects to the brain -- and the damage gets worse the more you drink. “There’s no threshold drinking for harm -- any alcohol is worse," says the study's lead author, Anya Topiwala. "Pretty much the whole brain seems to be affected -- not just specific areas, as previously thought."

In a study of 25,000 people in the U.K., researchers found alcohol caused participants' grey matter density to drop -- up to .8 percent, in some cases, according to the study. That's enough to cause behavioral and emotional changes in a person.