Light drinking of alcohol may conserve brain function

A recent study examined the relationship between alcohol consumption and changes in cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults in the U.S. The lead author Ruiyuan Zhang, a doctoral student at UGA’s College of Public Health mentioned that even though few older adults believe that drinking a little wine everyday could maintain a good cognitive condition, they wanted to know if drinking a small amount of alcohol actually correlates with a good cognitive function or if it’s just a survivor bias.

Regular, moderate consumption of alcohol has been shown to promote heart health and some research points to a similar protective benefit for brain health. However, many of these studies were not designed to isolate the effects of alcohol on cognition.

Zhang and his team developed a way to track cognition performance over 10 years using participant data from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study. During the study, a total of 19,887 participants completed surveys every two years about their health and lifestyle, including questions on drinking habits. These participants then had their cognitive function measured in a series of tests looking at their overall mental status, word recall and vocabulary. Their test results were combined to form a total cognitive score.

Zhang and his colleagues kept track of the performance of the participants on these cognitive tests and categorized their performance as high or low trajectories, meaning their cognitive function remained high over time or began to decline. Compared to nondrinkers, they found that those who had a drink or two a day tended to perform better on cognitive tests over time.

The optimal amount of drinks per week was between 10 and 14 drinks. But that doesn’t mean those who drink less should start drinking more or the ones who don’t drink should initiate alcohol consumption to prevent the deterioration in cognitive function.

Zhang added that the it is not proved that the effect is causal and also that the effect was stronger among white participants versus African American participants, and makes us wonder about the mechanisms of alcohol’s effect on cognition.

Reference

Association of Low to Moderate Alcohol Drinking With Cognitive Functions From Middle to Older Age Among US Adults-Ruiyuan Zhang, MD, MS¹; Luqi Shen, MS¹; Toni Miles, MD, PhD¹

Read our article on “DEVELOPMENT OF INFLAMMATION LINKED WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE“

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Aleena Koshy Thomas

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