Abstract
The good news is that light-to-moderate alcohol use does not appear to increase one’s risk of dementia In fact, a review of over a hundred studies looking at the relationship of alcohol to cognition found that light to moderate alcohol use, particularly wine, reduces the risk of both Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia [1]. Moderate alcohol consumption is typically defined as no more than one drink a day for women or no more than two drinks a day for men. Acknowledging some amount of variation, a drink is typically defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of liquor. The same review [1] found that heavy drinking was associated with an increased risk of dementia.
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Lipton, A.M., Marshall, C.D. (2013). Alcohol and Other Substances. In: The Common Sense Guide to Dementia For Clinicians and Caregivers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4163-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4163-2_10
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