Smoking may make the task of recovering from alcohol addiction more difficult, researchers say.

Fox News reported March 17 that a study found that smoking appears to slow down improvements in brain function and health in recovering alcoholics.

Researchers used MRIs to scan the brains of 25 alcoholics, including 14 smokers. They found that brain function and health improved substantially after a month of abstinence, but less so among smokers.

"This study suggests that for better brain recovery, it may be beneficial for alcoholics in early abstinence to stop smoking as well," said lead researcher Dieter Meyerhoff of the University of California at San Francisco. "This may be a lot to ask from an alcoholic individual going through drastic brain-chemical imbalances in early recovery. But it may lead to faster brain recovery."

The research appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.