Moderate Drinking May Improve Cognitive Health for Older Adults, Study Says

A study published in JAMA found that low to moderate alcohol consumption may improve cognitive function for white middle-aged or older adults, reports CNN . Low to moderate drinking was defined as less than eight drinks a week for women and less than 15 drinks a week for men. The researchers analyzed data on nearly 20,000 participants from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study, who were predominately white, female, and 62 years old, on average. They were assigned cognitive tests starting in 1996 through 2008, and surveyed every other year for about nine years. In comparison with those who said they never drank, low to moderate drinking was linked to significantly higher cognition scores for mental status, word recall, and vocabulary over time, along with lower rates of decline in each of those areas. However, this cognitive benefit did not extend to African Americans, and these findings do not change most doctors' recommendations. "This is not a 'one size fits all' choice," said Richard Isaacson with the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical Center. "These decisions should be tailored based on body weight, for example, and also modified based on whether the person has a history of alcohol or substance abuse."