Alcohol consumption is a recognized global public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "5.1 percent of the global burden of disease and injury is attributable to alcohol."
In 2010, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution urging countries to "strengthen national responses to public health problems caused by the harmful use of alcohol."
The U.K. government recently tightened their guidance on alcohol consumption, following new evidence of links to cancer.
In their study paper, in which they discuss the rationale for their investigation, the researchers explain that a link between heavy drinking and adverse brain health - including dementia and degeneration of brain tissue - has already been well established.
However, fewer studies have examined the relationship between moderate drinking and brain health, and their evidence is largely inconsistent.
Therefore, the team decided to investigate whether or not there is a link between moderate alcohol consumption and brain changes by analyzing 30 years worth of data (collected between 1985 and 2015) on 550 healthy men and women who took part in the Whitehall II Study.
The participants were aged 43 on average when they started the study and none of them were alcohol dependent.
The data included information about weekly alcohol consumption and regular measures of brain function and mental performance. The participants also had an MRI brain scan at the end of the study.