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(Ivanhoe Newswire) Light to moderate alcohol intake in older adults with normal cognition may lower the risk of dementia.
Kaycee Sink, MD, MAS, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine, Section on Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC, and colleagues studied 3,069 community-living adults aged 75 years and older without dementia. At the beginning of the study, 2,587 of the participants were assessed to be cognitively normal and 482 had mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
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Alcohol consumption was self-reported by study participants and categorized by the researchers as none, 1-7 drinks per week (light), 8-14 drinks per week (moderate), and more than 14 drinks per week (heavy). All types of alcohol were counted.
Participants were followed for up to six years and examined for changes in their memory or thinking abilities. There were 523 new cases of dementia during the follow up period.
After adjustment for demographics, smoking, co-morbidities, depression, social activity, and baseline cognition, moderate alcohol intake (1-2 drinks per day) was associated with a 37 percent lower risk of dementia in participants with normal cognition at baseline, but not in those with MCI.
For older adults who started the study with MCI, consumption of alcohol at any amount was associated with faster rates of cognitive decline. Those who were classified in the heavy drinker category (more than 14 drinks per week) were almost twice as likely to develop dementia during the study, compared to non-drinkers with mild cognitive impairment.
"Our findings suggest mild to moderate alcohol intake may reduce the risk of dementia," Sink is quoted as saying. "However, this does not appear to be true for those who already have mild cognitive impairment. Current recommendations not to exceed one drink per day for women and two for men are supported by these results."
SOURCE: Presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD 2009), July 13, 2009
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