Women who enjoy a drink of beer
or wine daily have sharper minds into old age than women
who abstain, U.S. researchers reported.
The report, based on a
study of nearly 12,500 nurses, adds to the apparent benefits
of light to moderate drinking, which can also prevent
heart disease and stroke.
"Our study suggests that
moderate consumption might provide older women some cognitive
benefits," said Dr. Francine Grodstein of Brigham and
Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston,
who worked on the study.
Writing in the New England
Journal of Medicine, Grodstein and colleagues said they
found that drinkers aged 70 to 81 were 20 percent less
likely to experience a decline in their thinking skills
over a two-year period than women who did not drink at
all.
On average, the women who
quaffed a beer or a glass of wine each day tended to have
the mental agility of someone a year and a half younger
than abstainers.
Drinking more than one
glass of beer or wine didn't produce a greater benefit,
the researchers said. However, few of the nurses in the
study were heavy drinkers.
And it didn't seem to matter
whether the women drank wine or beer, according to the
team, led by Dr. Meir Stampfer, also of Brigham and Women's
Hospital.
Moderate alcohol consumption
-- about a 12-ounce (0.35 liters) beer or a six-ounce
(0.18 liters) glass of wine -- is already known to reduce
the risk of heart disease and stroke.
The Stampfer team speculated
that the same effects that ward off cardiovascular conditions
may also keep the blood vessels in the brain healthier,
preventing small strokes that might impair thinking skills.
The researchers used the
ongoing Nurses' Health Study, in which the women filled
out questionnaires about drinking habits and took a telephone
survey designed to assess thinking skills.
Whether alcohol produces
long-term benefits is not known.
In an editorial in the
Journal, Dr. Denis Evans and Dr. Julia Bienias of the
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, cautioned that
the findings are not conclusive.
It may simply be, they
said, "that older persons who are in good cognitive and
physical health may be more likely than less healthy peers
to indulge in low-to-moderate alcohol consumption as part
of their social activities."
(Editing by Tabassum Zakaria;
Washington Newsroom 202-898-8300)
