Examination of the Relationship between Alcohol and Dementia in a Longitudinal Study

The high mortality rate and huge expenditure caused by dementia makes it a pressing concern for public health researchers. Among the potential risk factors in diet and nutrition, the relation between alcohol usage and dementia has been investigated in many studies, but no clear picture has emerged. This association has been reported as protective, neurotoxic, U-shaped curve, and insignificant in different sources. An individual’s alcohol usage is dynamic and could change over time, however, to our knowledge, only one study took this time-varying nature into account when assessing the association between alcohol intake and cognition. Using Framingham Heart Study (FHS) data, our work fills an important gap in that both alcohol use and dementia status were included into the analysis longitudinally. Furthermore, we incorporated a gender-specific categorization of alcohol consumption. In this study, we examined three aspects of the association: (1) Concurrent alcohol usage and dementia, longitudinally, (2) Past alcohol usage and later dementia, (3) Cumulative alcohol usage and dementia. The data consisted of 2,192 FHS participants who took Exams 17-23 during 1981-1996, which included dementia assessment, and had complete data on alcohol use (mean follow-up = 40 years) and key covariates. Cognitive status was determined using information from the Mini-Mental State Examinations (MMSE) and the examiner’s assessment. Alcohol consumption was determined in oz/week and also categorized as none, moderate and heavy. We investigated both total alcohol consumption and consumption by type of alcoholic beverage. Results showed that the association between alcohol and dementia may differ by gender and by alcoholic type.