Abstaining from alcohol in midlife could increase your chances of getting dementia

Many studies have previously shown that the occasional glass of red wine can be good for you, and now a new report suggests if you are middle-aged and don’t drink, you could actually be as much at risk of getting dementia as someone the same age who drinks heavily.

A study published in The British Medical Journal (BMJ) investigated the drinking habits of 9,000 civil servants living in London between 1985 and 1993 and aged from 35 to 55. It showed how both long-term alcohol abstinence and excessive alcohol consumption may increase the risk of dementia. The data is part of the ongoing Whitehall II interdisciplinary study of ageing.

Those who abstained from drinking in mid-life were nearly 45 per cent more at risk of developing dementia in comparison to those who consumed between one and 14 units of alcohol per week, according to the report.

People who consumed 14 units per week saw an increase in risk of 17 per cent for every extra seven units of alcohol.

Dr Sara Imarisio, head of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, responded to the findings by saying: “Past studies of alcohol and dementia risk have tended to record how much people drink at a single point in time, but the strength of this study is that the researchers have been able to track changes in people’s drinking over a number of years during midlife.”

However, she issued a degree of caution by adding: “As this study only looked at people’s drinking in midlife, we don’t know about their drinking habits earlier in adulthood, and it is possible that this may contribute to their later life dementia risk. People who completely abstain from alcohol may have a history of heavy drinking and this can make it difficult to interpret the links between drinking and health.”

The researchers relied on participants reporting their own drinking levels, meaning people may have underestimated how much alcohol they regularly drink.

The dementia researcher also noted, "Future research will need to examine drinking habits across a whole lifetime, and this will help to shed more light on the relationship between alcohol and dementia.”

You can find the report here