Association between alcohol consumption and incidence of dementia in current drinkers

Previous conventional epidemiological studies found a J-shape relationship between alcohol consumption and dementia, but this result was subject to confounding biases and reverse causation. Therefore, a research team investigated the potential linear or non-linear causal association between alcohol consumption and the incident risk of dementia in current drinkers.
The study used data from the UK Biobank to investigate the relationship between alcohol consumption and dementia risk. 313,958 White British current drinkers, who were free of dementia during 2006-2010, were followed up until 2021. Alcohol consumption was self-reported and calculated according to the National Health Service guideline. The primary outcome was all-cause dementia identified through hospital and mortality records. Conventional analysis was conducted and both non-linear and linear Mendelian Randomization (MR) analyses to assess causal relationships, employing a genetic score based on 95 SNPs identified from a meta-genome-wide association study of 941,280 people from Europe.
313,958 current drinkers consumed an average of 13.6 [IQR: 7.1-25.2] units/week alcohol (men averaged 20.2 [11.1-33.9] units/week and women 9.5 [5.3-16.7] units/week). During a mean follow-up of 13.2 years, 5394 (1.7%) developed dementia. The conventional analysis identified a J-shaped relationship between alcohol consumption and dementia risk, with the lowest risk at 12.2 units/week. The non-linear MR failed to identify a significant non-linear causal relationship (p = 0.45). Both individual-level (HR: 2.22 95%CI [1.06-4.66]) and summary-level (1.89 [1.53-2.32]) linear MR analyses indicated that higher genetically predicted alcohol consumption increased dementia risk.
This study identified a positive linear causal relationship between alcohol consumption and dementia among current drinkers. The J-shaped association found in conventional epidemiological analysis was not supported by non-linear MR analyses. The findings suggested that there was no safe level of alcohol consumption for dementia.
Source: Zheng L, Liao W, Luo S, Li B, Liu D, Yun Q, Zhao Z, Zhao J, Rong J, Gong Z, Sha F, Tang J. Association between alcohol consumption and incidence of dementia in current drinkers: linear and non-linear mendelian randomization analysis. EClinicalMedicine. 2024 Sep 5;76:102810.