Can We Get Too Old for Wine?

While
enormous attention understandably has been directed to the
effects of maternal drinking upon the earliest stages of
life, not much has been written about beneficial or adverse
consequences to those of us several years beyond the age of
39.

CAN
WE GET TOO OLD for WINE?

I
shall not dare strictly
to define “elderly”, likely viewed by most as 15 years older
than they. In general, medical studies of elderly
populations concern themselves with people over 65, perhaps
over 70.

Many well-meaning
commentators intuitively advise older folks not to drink, or
to limit themselves to droplet quantities. Is this blanket
caution backed up by data?

First, I would belabor the
obvious – some individuals, at any given age, are far more
frail and vulnerable than others – true at all ages, more so
among the elderly. Many older people can rewardingly and
safely equal or even outperform those younger. Most often,
sensible pacing enables most of us to continue our
activities as we age. It is clear that as we age we do enjoy
narrower margins of error, so some restraint is prudent, and
that we should not drink more just because we get older. We
must remain aware of possible interactions with medicines.
My reportage herein must not be used as individual medical
advice.

We’ll review the results of
research specifically directed at the elderly. Be aware
that, for most of the organ-systems of the body, there is
little or no difference in wine’s effects based on age, at
least not qualitatively, among non-pregnant
adults.

The most feared and
destructive of disorders of the elderly are those that
impair brain function. Alcohol abuse, but not moderate use,
often damages the nervous system, variously and severely.
Let’s look at what recent data tell us.

Letenneur, Dartigues and
Orgogozo, of the University of Bordeaux, found no
deleterious effects of wine on the intellect of 3766 elderly
individuals, even in more than moderate quantity. Moderate
wine consumption appeared at first glance to be associated
with reduced risk of cognitive deficit compared to
abstention, but the favorable difference did not stand up to
strict statistical rigors. The authors concluded: “Wine
consumption remains one of the last pleasures of this stage
of life; our findings argue against prohibiting mild or
moderate wine consumption in the elderly.”

Investigators at the
schools of medicine of Indiana University and Duke
University studied the mental effects of long-term alcohol
use on aging twins, thus minimizing confounding influences
of genetic and other factors. Neither abstainers nor
alcoholics were included. Cognitive function of five groups,
stratified by usual consumption, was compared. The
intellectual scores of cotwins averaging one to two drinks
per day are higher than those of their counterparts who
drank either more or less. We appear to have still another
J-shaped curve.

A study of the elderly
population of East Boston revealed that neither
mild-to-moderate consumption of alcohol nor smoking
increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. While
smoking is associated with weakness, poor balance and
neuromuscular performance of older women, moderate drinkers
in the study group of 9704 women over 65 have better
neuromuscular function than nondrinkers. The Cardiovascular
Health Study’s recently published findings are impressive.
Residents of North Carolina, California, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania – 65 years of age and older – were carefully
followed (including examinations of mental state and
cognition and brain MRIs) over several years. Abstainers
have twice the risk of dementia of those who consume between
one and six drinks per week. (In one particularly sensitive
genetic group, consumption of seven or more drinks per week
raised the dementia risk.) One mechanism of preservation of
brain function may be the familiar protection of blood
vessels supplying the brain by light-to-moderate drinking.
Indeed, the brain-feeding carotid arteries of the moderate
drinkers are less arteriosclerotic than those of
abstainers.

We have long observed that
modest doses of alcohol in older individuals help to
stimulate appetite, regularize bowel function, improve mood
and socialization, and reduce the requirement for drugs –
though effects on sleep may be mixed.

We must be impressed by a very large project, in which 6871
elderly individuals in Massachusetts, Iowa and Connecticut
were studied by investigators from the medical centers of
Harvard and Yale universities, the universities of
Massachusetts, Washington, Iowa, and Hawaii, and the
National Institutes of Health. Like so many other studies,
this one indicates that low or moderate alcohol consumption
is associated with reduced deaths resulting from
cardiovascular disease. No evidence of increased cancer risk
was found associated with alcohol consumption.

We tend to accumulate
inflammatory disorders as we age. (Arthritis is the most
familiar of these.) We are coming to understand that
inflammation plays an important role in coronary disease,
and probably in atherosclerotic disease of other blood
vessels. Increased levels of markers of inflammation in the
blood, such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, are
predictive of disease and death due to cardiovascular
disease in middle-aged and older people. A just-published
study of men and women in their 70s in Memphis and
Pittsburgh confirmed that, compared to abstention, light
drinking has an anti-inflammatory effect, reducing blood
levels of the markers, and, perhaps reducing cardiac
risk.