Alcohol consumption and risk of dementia: 23 year follow-up of Whitehall II cohort study

link between alcoholism and dementia

The purpose of this article is to review current models on alcohol neurotoxicity and dementia Sobriety and to analyze and compare studies focusing on the epidemiological link between alcohol consumption and the risk of dementia. Dose–response analyses were first conducted with 0 g/day as the reference value. Former drinkers were excluded from these analyses and were therefore conducted in 11 of the 15 cohorts where life‐time abstainers could be separated from former drinkers. To allow health guidance among drinkers, these analyses were repeated using current drinkers only from each of the 15 cohorts, with the lowest volume of alcohol consumed per day set as the reference value (0.3 g/day). The rms package 33 in R was used to calculate hazard ratios for alcohol use modelled using restricted cubic splines (three knots at the 10th, 50th and 90th percentiles).

Data analysis

In spite of this high mortality, and although both DT and AIP have been described as risk factors for mortality in people with AUD 22, to our knowledge, no studies have compared mortality in DT versus AIP. Also, we have found no studies comparing the co-morbidities related to the two diagnoses. However, people who do not drink may have given up alcohol after suffering health problems from excessive drinking. These studies don’t separate out the lifetime non-drinkers from those who have quit drinking.

  • Depending on how serious their condition is, they could be supported in residential care, sheltered accommodation or in their own home – with support in the community.
  • Joining a support group or seeking counseling can help you manage the stress and maintain your own well-being.
  • Replenishing essential nutrients, particularly thiamine, is vital for repairing brain function and preventing further cognitive decline.
  • The circumstances, well-documented in the country’s health records, were about as close to a randomized controlled trial as you could get without conducting one, Geldsetzer said.

What treatments are available for alcohol-related dementia?

link between alcoholism and dementia

AIP patients, however, did not show any significant differences in causes of death compared to AD patients when examining SMRs. It is noteworthy that a somewhat larger proportion of AIP patients (6.2%) lacked a recorded cause of death, compared to AD (2.4%) and DT (1.8%) patients (data not shown in table). Furthermore, we analyzed whether all-cause mortality varied between DT and AD, as well as AIP and AD, while controlling for age and gender in Cox regression models with 95% CIs (see Table 3). Initially, we regressed mortality on the patient group, using age as the time variable.

  • Regressionlines represent the causal effect of the exposure on the outcome using IVW,MR-Egger and Weighted median to estimate the causal effects.
  • It’s worth acknowledging that other studies have shown that being married may protect against dementia – so why the confusion?
  • One of the lesser-known risks of alcoholism is its potential connection to dementia.
  • A person with alcohol-related ‘dementia’ may also have problems with their memory.
  • This is because alcohol damages the part of the brain that controls balance, co-ordination and posture.

Alcohol and Alzheimer’s Disease

  • We used the approximate Poisson method to compute the standards errors and CIs, with an exponential (log-based) function approach to estimate the CIs.
  • If heavy drinkers reduced their drinking over time to a moderate level, their risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s fell by 12%, and the risk of all-cause dementia fell by 8%.
  • Therefore, there is also a need for the use of standardized objective measures of dementia and cognitive decline, using current consensus criteria.
  • The majority of cohorts allowed the separation of current abstainers into former drinkers and life‐time abstainers, allowing the exclusion of former drinkers from the abstainer category.

Females should have no more than one standard-sized drink a day, and seven or fewer drinks each week. Symptoms usually develop slowly over time, but some people notice changes suddenly. Which symptoms you experience will depend on which areas of your brain alcohol damages.

Ozempic and Similar Drugs Could Help Ward Off Dementia, Study Suggests

  • For the current study, baseline year of data collection for each cohort was the first assessment occasion where both alcohol use and dementia status were assessed, and ranged from 1975 to 2011.
  • So if you do not currently drink alcohol, you should not start as a way to reduce dementia risk.
  • This article discusses the link between moderate and excessive alcohol consumption and AD and the risks of other conditions.
  • JGB drafted the first manuscript, and all authors contributed equally to the development of the last version, which was also approved by all authors.
  • Additionally, annual demographic data for the age groups of 20 to 79 years during the period from 2009 to 2015 was sourced from Statistics Norway.

• The study found that while moderate consumption was actually linked to a slight decrease in Alzheimer’s disease, regular over-consumption of alcohol increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by 300%. Over time, excessive alcohol consumption increases a person’s risk of AD by 300%. A 2020 study showed that moderate alcohol intake could lower a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. All cohorts included data on age, sex and smoking status (categorized as current, former and never smoker). Additional demographic covariates included years of education at baseline (continuous variable; data available from 14 cohorts) and body mass index at baseline (BMI; continuous variable; data available from 14 can alcohol cause dementia cohorts). Supporting information, Tables S3–S8 include detail on the assessment, harmonization and distribution of all demographic and clinical covariates.

Related Conditions

link between alcoholism and dementia

The observational epidemiological studies underlying the reviews listed in Table 1 were limited because the majority of the studies were restricted to older populations (that is, late adulthood). In the past two years, his team has replicated the Wales findings in health records from other countries, including England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, that had similar rollouts of the vaccine. “We just keep seeing this strong protective signal for dementia in dataset after dataset,” he said. Over the next seven years, the researchers compared the health outcomes of people closest in age who were eligible and ineligible to receive the vaccine.

link between alcoholism and dementia

Alcohol use can be a risk factor for breast and other cancers, and consuming too much can contribute to digestive problems, heart and liver disease, hypertension, stroke, and a weak immune system over time, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This website does not provide, and should not be used for, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should consult with your healthcare providers when making decisions regarding your health. Many studies support the strong link between alcohol use and Alzheimer’s disease.

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