Moderate drinking may reduce death risk in early Alzheimer’s

Drinking alcohol is not exactly bad for one’s health.

The scientists found that there was a 77% lowered risk of death for patients with moderate alcohol consumption i.e. two to three units per day, compared with patients who consumed one unit or less daily.

As previous studies have shown a link between moderate drinking and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, the team of researchers wanted to investigate whether the same potential health benefit existed for those with mild Alzheimer’s disease, or whether instead, as alcohol is known to damage brain cells, drinking would be harmful to those with the neurogenerative disorder.

Experts say that more investigation is required to understand how moderate alcohol consumption might influence the health of a person with Alzheimer’s disease, especially since their research does have some limitations. This equals one 25 ml single measure of whisky (40 percent), or a third of a pint of beer (5-6 percent) 175 ml glass of red wine (12 percent).

Decima Assise, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and Harry Lomping dance to old music in a replica mid 1900’s living room.

To determine if perceived stress predicted amnestic MCI and if stress affected amnestic MCI independent of amnestic MCI risk factors, researchers evaluated 507 participants from the Einstein Aging Study aged 70 years and older.

Feeling stressed out increases the chances of elderly people developing mild cognitive impairment – often a prelude to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, a study found. “However, we can not exclusively, on the basis of this study, either encourage or advise against moderate alcohol consumption in (these) patients”.

This included information on how much alcohol people with early stage dementia or Alzheimer’s drank every day.

Those who drank two or three units of alcohol on a daily basis are significantly less likely to die than those who were either teetotal or who consumed four or more units daily.

“The results of our study point towards a potential, positive association of moderate alcohol consumption on mortality in patients with Alzheimer’s disease”, researchers wrote in the study, . Eight percent did not drink.

There was no significant difference between non-drinking patients and those who had more than three drinks a day.

It is not the first time when moderate drinking has been linked to reduce risk of a disease.

Most of the sample (71 per cent) drank one or fewer units a day and 17 per cent drank two to three units.