THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ALCOHOL-CONSUMPTION, COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE, AND DAILY FUNCTIONING IN AN URBAN SAMPLE OF OLDER BLACK-AMERICANS

OBJECTIVE: To report on moderate alcohol consumption and measurements of cognitive function and activities of daily living in an older, urba n, community-dwelling sample of black Americans. DESIGN: As part of a community prevalence study of dementia, information on alcohol consump tion and cognitive performance was collected on 2040 randomly selected black subjects living in Indianapolis. MEASUREMENTS: From questions i n the screening interview, alcohol consumption was grouped into four c ategories: lifetime abstainers, regular drinkers less than 4 drinks pe r week, 4 to 10 drinks per week, and more than 10 drinks per week. Cur rent and past drinkers were analyzed separately. Three measurements we re used: (1) a total cognitive score; (2) the delayed recall score fro m the East Boston Memory Test; (3) a score for daily functioning based upon information from the informant. Multiple regression models were fitted with drinking variables as the major predictor, including covar iates of age, gender, education, history of stroke, hypertension, bein g treated for depression, and a family history of dementia. MAIN RESUL TS: In all analyses, there was a very consistent pattern for both curr ent and past drinkers. There was a small but significant dose effect o f drinking for the drinkers, with subjects in the heaviest drinking ca tegory scoring poorest, i.e., lowest scores in cognitive tests and hig hest scores in scales of daily functioning indicating more impairment. The scores of abstainers were worse than those of subjects in the lig htest drinking category. The pattern of scores for cognitive performan ce and daily functioning was similar between current and past drinkers . These patterns remained the same even after potential confounders we re included. CONCLUSIONS: Previous research on effects of alcohol on h ealth indices have suggested a J-shaped relationship between amounts o f alcohol consumption and measurements of heart disease, stroke, and m ortality rates. Our study provides some support for the concept of a s imilar J-shaped relationship between cognitive performance and alcohol consumption, but the differences between drinking categories were mod est and the clinical significance of these findings uncertain.