Moderate drinking keep physical disabilities at bay

Los Angeles, United States, January 17: It is a well known fact that moderate drinking of alcohol daily helps in fighting heart diseases. Now, the researchers at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered some more virtues of alcohol.

The new research suggests that moderate drinking can also help elderly people prevent the onset of physical disability.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Arun S. Karlamangla, M.D., of the University of California Los Angeles, says that light to moderate alcohol consumption may help prevent the development of physical disabilities that can cause problems such as walking, dressing and grooming.

"If you start out in good health, alcohol consumption at light to moderate levels can be beneficial," Dr. Karlamangla added.

For the study, Dr. Karlamangla and team took in account the data from three sets of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey’s Epidemiologic Follow-up Study in the 1982, 1987 and 1992. They included 4,276 individuals (92 percent of them were white) and their mean age was 60.4 years.

People who drank less than 15 drinks per week and less than 5 drinks per day (less than 4 drinks daily for females) were classified as light or moderate drinkers, while people who drank 15 or more drinks weekly or five or more daily were classified as heavy drinkers.

Researchers asked the subjects if they face no difficulty, some difficulty or much difficulty performing simple daily tasks such as walking, eating, grooming, dressing etc.

The team found that healthy elderly people who consumed light to moderate alcohol had a 17.7 percent chance of becoming disabled or dying in 5 years, as compared to heavy drinkers who had 21.4 percent chances of dying or becoming disabled during the same period, while abstainers had a 26.7 percent chance.

According to the authors, "Light to moderate alcohol consumption appears to have disability prevention benefits only in men and women in relatively good health. The reasons seem to be related to starting to drink alcohol in a current state of disability. “

"It is possible that those who report poor health have progressed too far on the pathway to disability to accrue benefits from alcohol consumption and that alcohol consumption may even be deleterious for them," authors concluded.

The findings appear online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Researchers from the Loyola University evaluated a number of studies, which pointed out towards an interesting trend that moderate drinkers of wine, beer and liquor had lower risk of developing dementia and Alzheirmer's as compared to abstainers.