Alcohol abuse tied to the risk of early-onset dementia

According to a study published in Lancet Public Health on Tuesday, people who abuse alcohol increase their risk of developing early-onset dementia.

The study evaluated over 1 million adults who were hospitalised in France between 2008 and 2013 with a diagnosis of dementia, a clinical condition that shows cognitive ability progressively decreasing.

The researchers evaluated records contained in the French National Hospital Discharge database. They found that 16.5% of the males with dementia and 4% of the females had clinical diagnoses of alcohol-use disorders. The incidence of alcohol-use disorders was twice as high as both men and women who did not have dementia. The researchers defined alcohol-use disorders as ‘the chronic harmful use of alcohol or alcohol dependence’.

To focus on the effects of alcohol abuse, the study excluded patients who suffered from neurological disorders, including Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Michael Schwarzinger, a researcher with the Transitional Health Economics Network in Paris, and one of the principal authors of the study, said that one of the most striking findings of the study was the degree to which alcohol-use disorders contributed to the severity of dementia over the lifetime of a person.

He said that the relationship between alcohol abuse and dementia was strongest for those individuals suffering from early-onset dementia, defined as dementia that is diagnosed before the age of 65. More than 50% of the people with early-onset dementia had dementia directly related to alcohol abuse.