A study conducted at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine and published in the online American Journal of Epidemiology, has found that healthy people 50 years of age and older who were light-to-moderate drinkers were 25% less likely to suffer physical disabilities that cause many seniors to lose their independence, and were thus more likely to be able to continue to carrying out daily activities such as walking, dressing, eating, running errands, and other such activities, later in life.
Conversely, the study showed that at opposite ends of the spectrum - heavy drinkers and abstainers - there were higher risks of disabilities that would limit such activities. Also, the study found that in participants who began the study in poor health, there was no reported benefit from moderate alcohol consumption.
This was the first such study to follow a large, nationally representative sample of people over a period of years to look at the relationship between alcohol and physical disabilities
For the study's purposes, light-to-moderate drinking was defined as less than 15 drinks a week with a daily maximum of five for men and four for women.
Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who has conducted his own studies finding evidence associating moderate drinking with a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes, said that the new research increases the evidence that there is no inherent medical reason not to consume alcohol.
Study co-author Dr. Alison A. Moore, an associate professor of medicine in the geriatrics division at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, has commented that the common recommendation for older adults that consuming about one drink a day may be conservative, in that healthy 65- to 70-year-olds can consume more than a drink a day. Lead researcher Dr. Arun S. Karlamangla, also an associate professor of medicine at UCLA, also indicated that the study shows that light-to-moderate drinkers need not worry, that they will likely receive good benefits from moderate alcohol consumption.
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