Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between alcohol consumption and cognitive performance in two culturally diverse community-based populations. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was used including Japanese Americans (n = 1,836) and Caucasians (n = 2,581) aged 65 and older. Cognitive performance was measured using the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI) (0 to 100 point scale) and reaction time. Results: Multivariate analysis revealed significant cultural and gender differences with cognitive performance. Compared to abstainers, Caucasian drinkers scored higher than Japanese American drinkers on the CASI (adjusted means = 93.4 versus 91.6). In contrast, Japanese American drinkers scored faster than Caucasian drinkers on choice reaction time (adjusted means = 505 versus 579 milli-seconds). Discussion: Results showed that current drinking was associated with better cognition in both the Caucasian and Japanese American groups. Longitudinal studies are needed to support the possible protective effects of alcohol on cognition and explore whether culture may modify this apparent benefit.
Barrett-Connors, E. (1991). Postmenopausal estrogen and prevention bias. Annuals of Internal Medicine, 115, 455-456
2.
Blazer, D. (1982). The epidemiology of late life depression. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 30, 987-992.
3.
Bond, G. E. , Burr, R. M., McCurry, S. M., Borenstein, A., & Larson, E. B. (2001). Alcohol, aging, and cognition performance in a cohort of Japanese-American's aged 65 and older: The Kame Project. International Psychogeriatrics, 13, 207-223.
4.
Broe, G. A. , Creasey, H., Jorm, A. F., Bennett, H. P., Casy, B., Waite, L. M., et al. (1998). Health habits and risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in old age: A prospective study on the effects of exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption. Australia New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 22, 621-623.
5.
Dawson, D. A. , Grant, B., F., Chou, P. S., & Pickering, R. P. (1995). Subgroup variation in U.S. drinking patterns: Results of the 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Study. Journal of Substance Abuse, 7, 331-344.
6.
Delin, C. R. , & Lee, T. H. (1992). Drinking and the brain: Current evidence. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 27, 117-126.
7.
Dufouil, C. , Ducimetiere, P., & Alperovitch, A. (1997). Sex differences in the association between alcohol consumption and cognitive performance. American Journal of Epidemiology, 146, 405-412.
8.
Eckardt, M. J. , File, S. E., Gessa, G. L., Grant, K. A., Guerris, C., Hoffman, P. L., et al. (1998). Effects of moderate alcohol consumption on the central nervous system. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 22, 998-1040.
9.
Edelstein, S. L. , Kritz-Silverstein, D., & Barrett-Connor, E. (1998). Prospective association of smoking and alcohol use with cognitive function in an elderly cohort. Journal of Women's Health, 7, 1271-1281.
10.
Elias, P. K. , Elias, M. F., D'Agostino, R. B., Silbershatz, H., & Wolf, P. A. (1999). Alcohol consumption and cognitive performance in the Framingham Heart Study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 6, 580-589.
11.
Elwood, P. C. , Gallacher, E. J., Hopkinson, C. A., Pickering, J., Rabbitt, B., Stollery, B., et al. (1999). Smoking, drinking, and other life style factors and cognitive function in men in the Caerphilly cohort. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 53, 9-14.
12.
Folstein, M. F. , Folstein, S., & McHugh, P. R. (1975). Mini-mental state: A practical guide for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 12, 189-198.
13.
Forette, F. , Seux, M. L., Thijs, L., Divenah, A. L., Perol, M. B., Rigaud, A. S., et al. (1998). Detection of cerebral aging, an absolute need: Predictive value of cognitive status. European Neurology, 39(Suppl. 1), 2-6.
14.
Galanis, D. J. , Joseph, C. L., Masaki, K. H., Petrovitch, H., Ross, G. W., & White, L. (2000). A longitudinal study of drinking and cognitive performance in elderly Japanese-American men: The Honolulu Asia Aging Study. American Journal of Public Health, 90, 110.
15.
Gavaler, J. S. (1998). Alcoholic beverages as a source of estrogens. Alcohol Health & Research World, 22, 220-227.
16.
Gilbert, J. , & Collins, L. (1997). Ethnic variation in women's and men's drinking. In R. W. Wilsnack & S. C. Wilsnack (Eds.), Gender and alcohol: Individual and social perspectives (pp. 357-378). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies.
17.
Ginsburg, E. S. , Mello, N. K., Mendelson, J. H., Barbieri, R. L., Teoh, S. K., Rothman, M., et al. (1996). Effects of alcohol ingestion on estrogen in postmenopausal women. Journal of American Medical Association, 276, 1747-1751.
18.
Ginsburg, E. S. , Walsh, B. W., Gao, X., Gleason, R. E., Feltmate, C., & Barbieri, R. L. (1995). The effect of acute ethanol ingestion on estrogen levels in postmenopausal women using transdermal estradiol. Journal of Society for Gynecological Investigation, 2, 26-29.
19.
Gorski, R. A. (1991). Sexual differentiation of the endocrine brain and its control. In M. Motta (Ed.), Brain endocrinology (pp 71-104). New York: Raven.
20.
Graves, A. B. , Larson, E. B., Edland, S. D., Bowan, J. D., McCormick, W. C., McCurry, S. M., et al. (1996). Prevalence of dementia and its subtypes in the Japanese American population of King County, Washington State: The Kame Project. American Journal of Epidemiology, 144, 760-771.
21.
Graves, A. B. , Larson, E. B., Kukull, W. A., White, L. R., & Teng, E. L. (1993). Screening for dementia in the community in cross-national studies: Comparison between the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument and the Mini-Mental State Examination. In B. Corain, K. Iqbal, M. Nicolini, B. Winblad, B. Wisniewski, & P. Zatta (Eds.), Alzheimer's disease: Advances in clinical and basic research (pp. 114-119). New York: John Wiley.
22.
Graves, A. B. , Van Duijn, C. M., Chandra, V., Fratiglioni, V., Heyman, A., Jorm, A. F., et al. (1991). Alcohol and tobacco consumption as risk factors for Alzheimer's disease: A collaborative re-analysis of case-control studies: Eurodem Risk Factors Research Group. International Journal of Epidemiology, 20, 48-57.
23.
Hasegawa, K. (1983). The clinical assessment of dementia in the aged: A dementia screening scale for psychogeriatric patients. In M. Bergener, U. Lehr, E. Lang, & R. Schmiz-Scherzer (Eds.), Highlights of the 12th International Congress of Gerontology (pp. 207-218). New York: Springer.
24.
Heien, D. (1996). The relationship between alcohol consumption and earnings. Journal of Studies of Alcohol, 57, 536-542.
25.
Hendrie, H. C. , Gao, S., Hall, K. S., Hui, S. L., & Unverzagt, F. W. (1996). The relationship between alcohol consumption, cognitive performance, and daily functioning in an urban sample of older Black Americans. Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 44, 1158-1165.
26.
Hyde, J. S. , & Linn, M. C. (1988). Gender differences in verbal ability: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 104, 53-69.
27.
Jacobs, D. M. , Tang, M. X., Stern, Y., Sano, M., Marder, K., Bell, K. L., et al. (1998). Cognitive function in nondemented older women who took estrogen after menopause. Neurology, 50, 368-373.
28.
Jepson, R. G. , Fowkes, F. G., Donnan, P. T., & Housley, E. (1995). Alcohol intake as a risk factor for peripheral arterial disease in the general population in the Edinburgh Artery Study. European Journal of Epidemiology, 11, 9-14.
29.
Kokavec, A. , & Crowe, S. F. (1999). A comparison of cognitive performance in binge versus regular chronic alcohol misusers. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 34, 601-608.
30.
Laforge, R. , Williams, G. D., & Dufour, M. C. (1990). Alcohol consumption, gender, and self-reported hypertension. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 26, 235-249.
31.
La Rue, A. , Romero, L. J., Ortiz, I. E., Liang, H. C., & Lindeman, R. D. (1999). Neuropsychological performance of Hispanic and non-Hispanic older adults: An epidemiologic survey. Clinical Neuropsychology, 13, 474-486.
32.
Launer, L. J. , Feskens, E. J. M., Kalmijn, S., & Kromhout, D. (1996). Smoking, drinking, and thinking: The Zutphen Elderly Study. American Journal of Epidemiology, 143, 219-227.
33.
Lezak, M. D. (1995). Neuropsychological assessment (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
34.
Liu, H. C. , Chou, P., Lin, K. N., Wang, S. J., Fuh, J. L., Lin, H. C., et al. (1994). Assessing cognitive abilities and dementia in a predominantly illiterate population of older individuals in Kinmen. Psychological Medicine, 24, 763-770.
35.
Manly, J. J. , Jacobs, D. M., Sano, M., Bell, K., Merchant, C. A., Small, S. A., et al. (1998). Cognitive test performance among nondemented elderly African Americans and Whites. Neurology, 50, 1238-1245.
36.
Mann, K. , Batra, A., Gunthner, A., & Schroth, G. (1992). Do women develop alcoholic brain more readily than men?Alcohol and Clinical Experimental Research, 16, 1052-1056.
37.
Massman, P. J. , Delis, D. C., Butters, N., Dupont, R. M., & Gillin, J. C. (1992). The subcortical dysfunction model of memory deficits in depression: Neuropsychological validation of a subgroup of patients. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 12, 729-744.
38.
McCurry, S. M. , Edland, S. D., Teri, L., Kukull, W. A., Bowen, J. D., McCormick, W. C., et al. (1999). The Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI): Data from a cohort of 2524 cognitively intact elderly. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 14, 882-888.
39.
Mirand, A. L. , & Welte, J. W. (1996). Alcohol consumption among the elderly in a general population, Erie County, New York. American Journal of Public Health, 86, 978-984.
40.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism . (1997). Alcohol and health (9th Special Report to the U. S. Congress). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
41.
O'Hare, T. (1995). Differences in Asian and White drinking: Consumption level, drinking contexts, and expectancies. Addictive Behavior, 20, 261-266.
42.
Park, D. C. , Nisbett, R., & Hedden, T. (1999). Aging, culture, and cognition. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 54B, P75-P84.
43.
Parsons, O. A. , & Nixon, S. J. (1998). Cognitive functioning in sober social drinkers: A review of the research since 1986. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 59, 180-190.
44.
Rice, M. M. , Graves, A. B., McCurry, S. M., Gibbons, L. E., Bowen, J. D., McCormick, W. C., et al. (2000). Postmenopausal estrogen and estrogen-progestin use and 2-year rate of cognitive change in a cohort of older Japanese American women: The Kame Project. Archives of Internal Medicine, 160, 1641-1649.
45.
Schaie, K. W. (1990). Intellectual development in adulthood. In J. E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (pp. 291-310). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
46.
Shadlen, M. F. , Larson, E. B., Gibbons, L. E., Rice, M. M., McCormick, W. C., Bowen, J., et al. (2001). Ethnicity and cognitive performance among older African Americans, Japanese Americans, and Caucasians: The role of education. Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 49, 1371-1378.
47.
Sherwin, B. B. (1997). Estrogen effects on cognition in menopausal women. Neurology, 48(Suppl. 7), S21-S26.
48.
Stuck, A. E. , Walthert, J. M., Nikolaus, T., Bula, J., Hohmann, C., & Beck, J. C. (1999). Risk factors for functional decline in community living elderly people: A systematic literature review. Social Science and Medicine, 48, 445-469.
49.
Suh, I. , Shaten, J., & Cutler, J. A. (1992). Alcohol use and mortality from coronary heart disease: The role of high density-lipoprotein cholesterol. Annuals of Internal Medicine, 116, 881-887.
50.
Teng, E. L. (1990a, July). The 3RT Test. Paper presented at the 4th Japan-U.S. Workshop on Methods for Cross Cultural Research on Dementia, Honolulu, HI.
51.
Teng, E. L. (1990b). The 3Rt Test: Three reaction time tasks for IBM PC computers. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 22, 389-392.
52.
Teng, E. L. , & Chui, H. C. (1987). The modified Mini-Mental State (3MS) Examination. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 48, 314-317.
53.
Teng, E. L. , Chui, H. C., & Saperia, D. (1990). Senile dementia: Performance on a neuropsychological test battery. Recent Advances in Cardiovascular Diseases, 11(Suppl. 1), 27-34.
54.
Teng, E. L. , Hasegawa, K., Homma, A., Imai, Y., Larson, E., Graves, A., et al. (1994). The Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI): A practical test for cross-cultural epidemiological studies of dementia. International Psychogeriatrics, 6, 45-58.
55.
West, R. , Wilding, J., French, D., Kemp, R., & Irving, A. (1993). Effects of low and moderate doses of alcohol on driving hazard perception latency and driving speed. Addiction, 88, 527-532.
