In older people with mild cognitive impairment, having a drink now and then -- up to an average of one drink of alcohol each day -- may delay progression to dementia , new research suggests.

In older people with mild cognitive impairment, having a drink now and then -- up to an average of one drink of alcohol each day -- may delay progression to dementia , new research suggests.

"While many studies have assessed alcohol consumption and cognitive function in the elderly, this is the first study to look at how alcohol consumption affects the rate of progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia," study authors Dr. Vincenzo Solfrizzi and Dr. Francesco Panza, from the University of Bari in Italy, said in a statement.

In the study, reported in the medical journal Neurology, the researchers assessed the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment in 1445 subjects and the progression to dementia in 121 patients with mild cognitive impairment.

The participants were between 65 and 84 years of age at the start of the study, and they were followed for 3.5 years. Alcohol use was assessed before the survey.

Drinking was not associated the development of mild cognitive impairment, according to the report. However, once mild impairment occurred, subjects who had up to one drink per day of alcohol had an 85 percent reduced risk of dementia compared with those who abstained.

The benefit was seen with both alcohol in general and with wine in particular.

Having more than one drink a day, however, offered no protection against dementia compared with abstaining, the report indicates.

"The mechanism responsible for why low alcohol consumption appears to protect against the progression to dementia isn't known. However, it is possible that the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain may play a role," Solfrizzi and Panza conclude.

有輕度認(rèn)知損害的老年人可以喝點(diǎn)酒，一項(xiàng)最新研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，每天喝點(diǎn)酒可以延緩病情向癡呆癥的發(fā)展。

研究報(bào)告撰寫者、意大利巴里大學(xué)的溫森佐·索爾弗里茲博士和弗朗西斯科·潘薩博士在一份聲明中說(shuō)：“此前有很多研究對(duì)老年人飲酒與認(rèn)知功能間的關(guān)系進(jìn)行過(guò)探討，而此項(xiàng)研究則首次對(duì)飲酒會(huì)如何影響輕度認(rèn)知損害向癡呆癥的發(fā)展速度進(jìn)行了探究。”

此項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果在《神經(jīng)學(xué)》醫(yī)學(xué)期刊上發(fā)表。研究人員對(duì)1445名研究對(duì)象中輕度認(rèn)知損害的發(fā)生及121名有輕度認(rèn)知損害的病人向癡呆癥的發(fā)展進(jìn)行了研究。

研究對(duì)象的年齡在研究開(kāi)始之時(shí)在65歲至84歲之間，他們被跟蹤調(diào)查了三年半。研究對(duì)象的飲酒情況在調(diào)查之前已被確定。

據(jù)研究報(bào)告顯示，輕度認(rèn)知損害的發(fā)生與飲酒無(wú)關(guān)。但這種情況一旦發(fā)生，每天喝一杯酒的研究對(duì)象與那些不喝酒的相比，患癡呆癥的幾率降低了85%。

從總體來(lái)看，酒精飲品都可以實(shí)現(xiàn)這種功效，其中葡萄酒的功效最強(qiáng)。

報(bào)告指出，每天飲酒超過(guò)一杯和不喝酒一樣，對(duì)預(yù)防癡呆癥起不到作用。

索爾弗里茲和潘薩博士總結(jié)說(shuō)：“為何少量飲酒可以預(yù)防癡呆癥還沒(méi)有答案。這可能與腦部血管的分布有關(guān)。”