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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Moderate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes and cognitive decline
— longitudinal cohort study | | Author(s) | Anya Topiwala, Charlotte L Allan, Vyara Valkanova |
| Journal title | BMJ 2017;357:j2353, 06 June 2017 |
| Pages | 27 pp |
| Source | https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j2353 |
| Keywords | Alcoholic beverages ; At risk ; Cognitive impairment ; Dementia ; Civil servants ; Living in the community ; Measurement ; Longitudinal surveys. |
| Annotation | An observational cohort study of weekly alcohol intake in which cognitive performance was measured repeatedly over 30 years (1985-2015) investigated whether moderate alcohol consumption has a favourable or adverse association, or no association with brain structure and function. Multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed at study endpoint (2012-15). Participants were 550 men and women living in the community (mean age 43 at baseline) from the Whitehall II imaging sub-study. None were "alcohol dependent" according to the CAGE screening questionnaire, and all were safe to undergo MRI of the brain at follow-up. 23 were excluded because of incomplete or poor quality imaging data, or gross structural abnormality (such as a brain cyst), or incomplete alcohol use, sociodemographic, health or cognitive data. Higher alcohol consumption over the 30 year follow-up was associated with increased odds of hippocampal atrophy in a dose dependent fashion. While those consuming over 30 units a week were at the highest risk compared with abstainers (odds ratio 5.8, 95% confidence interval 1.8 to 18.6; P=0.001), even those drinking moderately (14-21 units/week) had three times the odds of right sided hippocampal atrophy (3.4, 1.4 to 8.1; P=0.007). There was no protective effect of light drinking (1-<7 units/week) over abstinence. Higher alcohol use was also associated with differences in corpus callosum microstructure and faster decline in lexical fluency. No association was found with cross-sectional cognitive performance or longitudinal changes in semantic fluency or word recall. The study concludes that alcohol consumption, even at moderate levels, is associated with adverse brain outcomes, including hippocampal atrophy. These results support the recent reduction in alcohol guidance in the UK, and question the current limits recommended in the US. (OFFPRINT.) (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-170613001 A |
| Classmark | YPP: CA3: E4: EA: XM8: K4: 3R: 3J * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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