Middle-Age Adults With Drinking Problems At Higher Risk of Memory Impairment

Middle-aged adults with a drinking problem are at a 50 percent higher risk of developing memory impairment in old age, a new study finds.

Alcohol is not just bad for the body but also the mind, according to the findings of a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Exeter. The researchers found that middle-aged adults with a drinking problem are at a 50 percent higher risk of developing memory impairment as older adults.

The study was conducted on 6542 middle-aged adults born between 1931 and 1941, who were part of the Health and Retirement Study in the U.S. The research started in 1992 and a follow-up was conducted every year till 2010. Researchers used the CAGE* questionnaire (short for Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-opener) to access each participant's history of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). They found that the risk of memory impairment more than doubled among participants that had a history of AUDs.

"We already know there is an association between dementia risk and levels of current alcohol consumption -- that understanding is based on asking older people how much they drink and then observing whether they develop problems," lead author Dr. Iain Lang said in a press statement. "But this is only one part of the puzzle and we know little about the consequences of alcohol consumption earlier in life. What we did here is investigate the relatively unknown association between having a drinking problem at any point in life and experiencing problems with memory later in life."

"This finding -- that middle-aged people with a history of problem drinking more than double their chances of memory impairment when they are older -- suggests three things: that this is a public health issue that needs to be addressed; that more research is required to investigate the potential harms associated with alcohol consumption throughout life; and that the CAGE questionnaire may offer doctors a practical way to identify those at risk of memory/cognitive impairment and who may benefit from help to tackle their relationship with alcohol," he added.

The researchers also clarified that the findings of this study do not necessarily mean that a person refrains from drinking alcohol altogether. In fact, previous studies have stated that a glass of red wine can do wonders to keep dementia at bay.

"When we talk about drinking too much, the media often focuses on young people ending up in A&E after a night out," Dr Doug Brown, Director of Research and Development at Alzheimer's Society said. "However, there's also a hidden cost of alcohol abuse given the mounting evidence that alcohol abuse can also impact on cognition later in life. This small study shows that people who admitted to alcohol abuse at some point in their lives were twice as likely to have severe memory problems, and as the research relied on self-reporting that number may be even higher."

The current study was published online in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. The research was supported by the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care South West Peninsula (NIHR PenCLAHRC).

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