{"id":678,"date":"2013-11-29T14:44:02","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T19:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/?p=678"},"modified":"2013-12-18T19:26:39","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:26:39","slug":"shaken-not-stirred-alcohol-consumption-in-older-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/2013\/11\/29\/shaken-not-stirred-alcohol-consumption-in-older-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaken, Not Stirred: Alcohol Consumption in Older Adults"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"article-2199783-14E3822D000005DC-925_468x299\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At my grandfather\u2019s 89th<\/sup> birthday last year, everyone was having a blast, especially since my grandfather made jokes about his aging mind and body constantly. However, the funniest moment of all came when my older sister Liz made him a martini. As a result of poor judgment, she decided to make him a watered-down drink. This did not go over well. When my grandfather took the first sip, he said to my sister, \u201cElizabeth, I don\u2019t know what this is, but it is not a martini.\u201d The whole family burst out laughing, and my grandfather chastised my sister for trying to trick him. After the situation was ironed out with a real martini or two, the weekend continued without any more hiccups. My grandfather remains very particular about his food and beverages to this day, further proven by the fact that he requested a thirteen layer cake for his 90th<\/sup> birthday this past summer. Fortunately, this year all his drinks were made properly by my uncle, who used to work as a bar tender.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From the experiences with my picky and observant aging grandfather, I have been more and more interested in the role of alcohol in the lives of older adults compared to their younger counterparts. My interest led me to a study that focused on the effects of lifetime alcohol consumption and head circumference on cognition in older adults. This study was done with 1,569 South Koreans by Son, Lee, Oh, and Hong (2011). Son et al. (2011) discussed in their introduction that brain volume can be ascertained from head circumference, and that greater brain volume has been suggested to have protective effects on cognition in an aging adult. Then, Son et al. (2011) explained that excessive alcohol consumption may affect cognition, but low or moderate drinking has also been associated with protective effects on the aging brain. Son et al. (2011) combined the above information to build the hypothesis that adults who had a smaller head circumference and higher alcohol intake would be at a greater risk for negative cognitive effects in old age.<\/p>\n

Son et al. (2011) began by doing full physical and mental examinations of all participants. Head circumference was measured by nurses during the physical exam, and they took care to include as little hair as possible. The test for cognition was called the K-MMSE, which is a Korean version of the MMSE, or Mini Mental State Examination. Participants were next asked to report how many alcoholic drinks they had per week, how many years they had been drinking, and what kind of alcohol they drank. Lifetime intake was based off of frequency, duration, and alcohol content. The alcohol content of the three common Korean drinks is as follows: soju (25% alcohol), makgeoli (4.5%), and beer (6%). Son et al. (2011) calculated lifetime alcohol consumption with this equation:<\/p>\n

(Bottles per week) x<\/b> (Alcohol content per bottle) x<\/b> 52 weeks x<\/b> (Total drinking duration in years)<\/p>\n

Out of all 1,569 participants, 1297 reported being non-drinkers, 134 participants were in the low alcohol intake group, and 138 were in the high alcohol intake group. The high alcohol intake group was also comprised of over 90% men. Three head circumference groups were also formed: Group 1 for \u2264 53.4cm, Group 2 for 53.5cm to 54.9cm, and Group 3 for \u2265 55cm. Participants were almost evenly distributed among the head circumference groups with about 500 people in each group. Most importantly, the results showed that high alcohol intake and smaller head circumference were both associated with lower mean K-MMSE scores and cognitive impairment. However, Son et al. (2011) also found that mean K-MMSE performance of the high alcohol intake group improved as head circumference increased. In fact, those older adults in the high alcohol intake group and Group 3 for head circumference had mean K-MMSE scores similar to non-drinkers in Group 2 and 3. On average, those participants in the low alcohol intake group also performed slightly better in all head circumference groups than the non-drinker group and the high alcohol intake group.<\/p>\n

As we all know, some negative effects of alcohol are apparent directly following consumption, but the later effects can vary over the lifetime from person to person due to many factors, as shown by Son et al. (2011). Even if you do have a big head, take into account that heavy drinking is still bad for your body. The emphasis I am intent on making here is that cognition can be seriously impacted by heavy drinking throughout the lifespan. Regardless of al greater head circumference, nobody should expect to be immune to the immediate or delayed impacts of high alcohol consumption.<\/p>\n

\"Study0907-Post<\/a><\/p>\n

Reference<\/p>\n

Son, S.J., Lee, K.S., Oh, B.H., & Hong, C.H. (2011). The effects of head circumference (HC) and lifetime alcohol consumption (AC) on cognitive function in the elderly. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 54<\/i>, 343-347. doi: 10.1016\/j.archger.2011.05.025<\/p>\n

Link- \u201cThe effects of head circumference (HC) and lifetime alcohol consumption (AC) on cognitive function in the elderly<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Images:<\/p>\n

Woman with Budweiser<\/a><\/p>\n

Men Toasting Beers<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At my grandfather\u2019s 89th birthday last year, everyone was having a blast, especially since my grandfather made jokes about his aging mind and body constantly. However, the funniest moment of all came when my older sister Liz made him a martini. As a result of poor judgment, she decided to make him a watered-down drink. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3988,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40864],"tags":[130389],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3988"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":927,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/cogblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}