A drink a day appears to protect elderly women from cognitive decline, according to new data from the ongoing Nurses' Health Study.
During a 2-year follow-up study, interviewers administered four cognitive tests to more than 11,000 women aged 70–81 years, said Meir Stampfer, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues. They found that moderate drinkers (about one drink/day) had a 20% lower risk of cognitive decline than either nondrinkers or those who drank two or more drinks/day. Both wine and beer were associated with the protective effect (N. Engl. J. Med. 2005;3:245–53).
Moderate alcohol intake elevates the HDL level and reduces that of fibrinogen and other thrombic factors. “Thus, moderate intake of alcohol may help preserve brain vasculature, may prevent subclinical strokes, and could thus result in better cognitive function,” the authors said.
But more studies are needed before doctors advise elderly women to start hitting the bottle, Denis Evans, M.D., of Rush University, Chicago, said in an accompanying editorial: “Persons seeking to maximize cognition in old age must keep in mind both the uncertainty of the current results and the knowledge that alcohol consumption can be a double-edged sword, with the dangers of overindulgence being all too familiar.”