Amount of Alcohol Consumed Tied to Dementia Risk in Older Adults

A study in JAMA Network Open found the of alcohol older adults consume affects their risk for dementia differently depending on whether they have mild cognitive impairment, reports Healio . "Our findings provide some reassurance that alcohol consumed within recommended limits was not associated with an elevated risk of dementia among older adults with normal cognition," said Manja Koch at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "Nevertheless, physicians should provide individualized risk assessments when counseling persons about alcohol intake." The investigators analyzed data from participants in the Gingko Evaluation of Memory Study, which included 3,021 adults, median age 78 years, of whom 473 had mild cognitive impairment at baseline and 2,548 did not. Those who drank 7.1 to 14 alcoholic drinks weekly had less risk for dementia compared with those who drank less than one drink weekly, in both the mild cognitive impairment and non-impairment cohorts. The risk for dementia increased for those with mild cognitive impairment when they consumed more than 14 drinks a week, versus less than one drink a week. Consuming less than the recommended amount of alcohol daily corresponded with a lower dementia risk among those without mild cognitive impairment, compared with those who did not drink daily, but who did drink to excess when they did.