The team of scientists, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, say their new study reveals that investigations over the past decade, which have increasingly linked alcohol consumption to improved cognition, are “deeply flawed”.

The experts looked at a project known as the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which tracked 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957.

Cognitive abilities from the freshman and junior years of high school were recorded and, at the age of 53, study participants’ alcohol intake was assessed and they were asked to undertake an abstract reasoning test.

The team discovered that, regardless of gender, the subjects with low levels of alcohol intake did better on the abstract reasoning tasks than either non-drinkers or heavy drinkers.

However, after adjusting for cognitive ability measures taken in adolescence and educational attainment, the apparent benefits of moderate drinking on cognition disappeared.

The authors of the study say that the strength of their research is that it uses longitudinal data – taking into account the subjects’ cognitive ability early in life.

They argue that studies which have suggested alcohol is beneficial for cognition in middle-aged people are flawed, because the investigations lacked such baseline data.

“The claims about [moderate drinking] being bad or good aren’t really based on good evidence,” says co-author Dr Robert Hauser.

However, he emphasizes that it cannot be extrapolated from the new study that moderate alcohol use has any damaging effects on cognition.


Source: Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research

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