Report: Alcohol wards off dementia

Alcohol can be good for you -- in moderation

LONDON, England -- Dutch scientists have found that drinking alcohol up to three times daily can almost halve the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a report has said.

The beverage is not restricted to just red wine, which has been reported in the past as helping reduce heart problems.

Beer and spirits in moderation can also be beneficial, scientists in the Lancet medical journal said on Friday.

Drinking a moderate amount of any alcoholic beverage -- between one and three drinks a day -- helped prevent Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.

The smaller the amounts of alcohol drunk, the smaller the benefits. Heavy drinking, however, which is categorised as more than four glasses a day, diminished the health benefits of moderate drinking.

Dutch researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam carried out a six-year study of 5,395 people aged 55 and over who showed no signs of dementia.

The scientists checked their drinking habits and monitored their state of health.

By the end of the study, 197 participants had developed Alzheimer's or other dementia conditions.

But those who consumed between one and three drinks a day had a 42% lower risk of developing dementia than non-drinkers.

A clear correlation was seen between the level of alcohol consumption and the degree of dementia risk.

Volunteers who did not drink every day but had more than one tipple a week had a 25% lower risk. Those who drank less than a glass a week had 18% less risk than teetotallers.

Heavy drinkers were one-and-a-half times more likely than non-drinkers to suffer from vascular dementia -- caused by blocked or narrowed blood vessels in the brain -- and slightly more likely to develop Alzheimer's.

Excess drinking destroys the liver, and can be toxic to the brain. Alcoholics can end up with a shrunken brain, which is linked to dementia. There is even a medical condition called alcoholic dementia.

Researchers suggested the blood-thinning and cholesterol-lowering properties of ethanol in alcohol may ward off dementia, which is often caused by a blood vessel problem.

Another possibility, the study speculated, is that low levels of alcohol could stimulate the release acetylcholine, a brain chemical believed to facilitate learning and memory.

Monique Breteler, who led the research, said: "In recent years evidence has been accumulating that vascular factors may be involved in the cause of dementia, both vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

"Our findings lend further support to the vascular hypothesis of dementia. We saw some indication of a stronger relation with alcohol in persons with a genetically determined susceptibility for Alzheimer's disease.

"Our findings can help focus research into the specific mechanisms that underlie the development of dementing illnesses."