One glass of beer or wine a day may shrink the brain

(KYMA, KECY/CNN) - Just one beer or glass of wine a day may cause the brain to shrink with age.

That startling finding is from Friday's edition of the journal Nature.

On average, people at age 50 who drank a pint of beer or a six-ounce glass of wine every day aged their brains by two years.

The study reports that those who drank four times that amount each day had brain shrinkage equivalent to a decade of aging.

Data for the report came from an analysis of 36-thousand people enrolled in the U-K Biobank study.

The study contradicts previous research that showed moderate amounts of alcohol actually offered a health benefit for the brain.

One reviewer says the nature article is not definitive, but it does identify areas for future research.