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Posted: May 30, 2007
Drink a Day May Delay Dementia
Up to one alcoholic drink per day may significantly slow the drift into dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment, according to a study published in the journal Neurology.
Mild cognitive impairment is a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia that is used to classify people with mild memory or cognitive problems and no significant disability.
The study found that people with mild cognitive impairment who had up to one drink of alcohol a day – most often wine -- developed dementia at an 85% slower rate than people with mild cognitive impairment who never drank alcohol.
"While many studies have assessed alcohol consumption and cognitive function in the elderly, this is the first study to look at how alcohol consumption affects the rate of progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia," said study authors Dr. Vincenzo Solfrizzi and Dr. Francesco Panza, both of the Department of Geriatrics at the University of Bari, in Bari, Italy.
"The mechanism responsible for why low alcohol consumption appears to protect against the progression to dementia isn't known,” they added. “However, it is possible that the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain may play a role in why alcohol consumption appears to protect against dementia. This would support other observations that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect the brain from stroke and vascular dementia."
The study did not find any association between higher levels of drinking -- more than one drink per day -- and the rate of progression to dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment compared to non-drinkers.
The study was supported by the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging and by AFORIGE, an Italian association for aging research.
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© 2007 Pederson Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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