Moderate drinking reduces risk of death by Alzheimer’s
Drinking 2 to 3 units of alcohol every day is linked to a reduced risk of death among people with early stage Alzheimer’s disease, finds research published in the online journal BMJ Open.
The research team analysed data originally collected on 330 people with early stage dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and their primary carers from across Denmark as part of the Danish Alzheimer’s Intervention Study (DAISY).
During the monitoring period, 53 (16.5%) of those with mild Alzheimer’s disease died. Consumption of 2-3 units of alcohol every day was associated with a 77% lowered risk of death compared with a tally of 1 or fewer daily units. There was no significant difference in death rates among those drinking no alcohol or more than 3 units every day compared with those drinking 1 or fewer daily units.
The researchers say there could be several explanations for the findings, including that people who drink moderately have a richer social network, which has been linked to improved quality, and possibly length, of life.
Another explanation may lie in the fact that the seemingly protective effect of alcohol may have been caused by reverse causality, whereby those drinking very little alcohol were in the terminal phase of their life, which would have artificially inflated the positive association. In a bid to correct for this, the researchers re-analysed the data, omitting the first year of monitoring. But this made no difference to the findings.
“The results of our study point towards a potential, positive association of moderate alcohol consumption on mortality in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. However, we cannot solely, on the basis of this study, either encourage or advise against moderate alcohol consumption in [these] patients,” they caution.
They suggest that further research looking at the impact of alcohol on cognitive decline and disease progression in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease would be particularly informative.
Category: Features, Health alert
