OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between alcohol consumption and risk of dementia.
DESIGN: Prospective cohort study.
SETTING: Civil service departments in London (Whitehall II study).
PARTICIPANTS: 9087 participants aged 35-55 years at study inception (1985/88).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Incident dementia, identified through linkage to hospital, mental health services, and mortality registers until 2017. Measures of alcohol consumption were the mean from three assessments between 1985/88 and 1991/93 (midlife), categorised as abstinence, 1-14 units/week, and >14 units/week; 17 year trajectories of alcohol consumption based on five assessments of alcohol consumption between 1985/88 and 2002/04; CAGE questionnaire for alcohol dependence assessed in 1991/93; and hospital admission for alcohol related chronic diseases between 1991 and 2017.
RESULTS: 397 cases of dementia were recorded over a mean follow-up of 23 years. Abstinence in midlife was associated with a higher risk of dementia (hazard ratio 1.47, 95% confidence interval 1.15 to 1.89) compared with consumption of 1-14 units/week. Among those drinking >14 units/week, a 7 unit increase in alcohol consumption was associated with a 17% (95% confidence interval 4% to 32%) increase in risk of dementia. CAGE score >2 (hazard ratio 2.19, 1.29 to 3.71) and alcohol related hospital admission (4.28, 2.72 to 6.73) were also associated with an increased risk of dementia. Alcohol consumption trajectories from midlife to early old age showed long term abstinence (1.74, 1.31 to 2.30), decrease in consumption (1.55, 1.08 to 2.22), and long term consumption >14 units/week (1.40, 1.02 to 1.93) to be associated with a higher risk of dementia compared with long term consumption of 1-14 units/week. Analysis using multistate models suggested that the excess risk of dementia associated with abstinence in midlife was partly explained by cardiometabolic disease over the follow-up as the hazard ratio of dementia in abstainers without cardiometabolic disease was 1.33 (0.88 to 2.02) compared with 1.47 (1.15 to 1.89) in the entire population.
CONCLUSION: The risk of dementia was increased in people who abstained from alcohol in midlife or consumed >14 units/week. In several countries, guidelines define thresholds for harmful alcohol consumption much higher than 14 units/week. The present findings encourage the downward revision of such guidelines to promote cognitive health at older ages.
Young people frequently display alcohol-related posts ("alcoholposts") on social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram. Although evidence exists that such posts may be linked with increases in alcohol consumption, hardly any studies have focused on the content of such posts. This study addresses this gap by applying and extending the alcoholpost-typology previously proposed by Hendriks, Gebhardt, and van den Putte. A content analysis assessed the extent to which alcoholposts were displayed on Facebook and/or Instagram profiles of young participants (12-30 years; N = 192), and which type of alcoholpost these posts most strongly resembled. Moderate alcoholposts (e.g., in which alcohol was in the background) were most often posted. At times, textual alcoholposts and commercial alcoholposts were also displayed; however, extreme posts (e.g., about drunk people or drinking-games) were almost nonexistent. These findings confirm the previous results by Hendriks et al. that moderate posts are more frequently posted than extreme posts. This could imply that positive associations with alcohol consumption are more visible on social media than negative associations, potentially leading to an underestimation of alcohol-related risks.
BACKGROUND: Although it is well established that heavy alcohol consumption increases the risk of hypertension, the risk associated with low levels of alcohol intake in men and women is unclear.
METHODS AND RESULTS: We searched Medline and Embase for original cohort studies on the association between average alcohol consumption and incidence of hypertension in people without hypertension. Random-effects meta-analyses and metaregressions were conducted. Data from 20 articles with 361 254 participants (125 907 men and 235 347 women) and 90 160 incident cases of hypertension (32 426 men and 57 734 women) were included. In people drinking 1 to 2 drinks/day (12 g of pure ethanol per drink), incidence of hypertension differed between men and women (relative riskwomen vs men=0.79; 95% confidence interval, 0.67-0.93). In men, the risk for hypertension in comparison with abstainers was relative risk=1.19 (1.07-1.31; I(2)=59%), 1.51 (1.30-1.76), and 1.74 (1.35-2.24) for consumption of 1 to 2, 3 to 4, and 5 or more standard drinks per day, respectively. In women, there was no increased risk for 1 to 2 drinks/day (relative risk=0.94; 0.88-1.01; I(2)=73%), and an increased risk for consumption beyond this level (relative risk=1.42; 1.22-1.66).
CONCLUSIONS: Any alcohol consumption was associated with an increase in the risk for hypertension in men. In women, there was no risk increase for consumption of 1 to 2 drinks/day and an increased risk for higher consumption levels. We did not find evidence for a protective effect of alcohol consumption in women, contrary to earlier meta-analyses.