Interaction between Alcohol Consumption and Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) Genotype with Cognition in Middle-Aged Men

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lumia
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Interaction between Alcohol Consumption and Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) Genotype with Cognition in Middle-Aged Men

Post by lumia »

I can't find a free version of this, but I think it's quite important for this question: is it fine for me to drink some wine or hard cider once a while?
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2020 Jul 14;1-13.

Interaction between Alcohol Consumption and Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) Genotype with Cognition in Middle-Aged Men
Riki E Slayday, Daniel E Gustavson, Jeremy A Elman, Asad Beck, Linda K McEvoy, Xin M Tu, Bin Fang, Richard L Hauger, Michael J Lyons, Ruth E McKenzie, Mark E Sanderson-Cimino, Hong Xian, William S Kremen, Carol E Franz
PMID: 32662384 DOI: 10.1017/S1355617720000570

Abstract

Objective: Heavy alcohol consumption is associated with poorer cognitive function in older adults. Although understudied in middle-aged adults, the relationship between alcohol and cognition may also be influenced by genetics such as the apolipoprotein (ApoE) ε4 allele, a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease. We examined the relationship between alcohol consumption, ApoE genotype, and cognition in middle-aged adults and hypothesized that light and/or moderate drinkers (≤2 drinks per day) would show better cognitive performance than heavy drinkers or non-drinkers. Additionally, we hypothesized that the association between alcohol use and cognitive function would differ by ApoE genotype (ε4+ vs. ε4-).

Method: Participants were 1266 men from the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA; M age = 56; range 51-60) who completed a neuropsychological battery assessing seven cognitive abilities: general cognitive ability (GCA), episodic memory, processing speed, executive function, abstract reasoning, verbal fluency, and visuospatial ability. Alcohol consumption was categorized into five groups: never, former, light, moderate, and heavy.

Results: In fully adjusted models, there was no significant main effect of alcohol consumption on cognitive functions. However, there was a significant interaction between alcohol consumption and ApoE ε4 status for GCA and episodic memory, such that the relationship of alcohol consumption and cognition was stronger in ε4 carriers. The ε4+ heavy drinking subgroup had the poorest GCA and episodic memory.

Conclusions: Presence of the ε4 allele may increase vulnerability to the deleterious effects of heavy alcohol consumption. Beneficial effects of light or moderate alcohol consumption were not observed.
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Re: Interaction between Alcohol Consumption and Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) Genotype with Cognition in Middle-Aged Men

Post by NF52 »

lumia wrote:I can't find a free version of this, but I think it's quite important for this question: is it fine for me to drink some wine or hard cider once a while?
Hi lumia!

This is one of those thorny questions on which it seems the researchers' answer for any specific individual is "it depends": On your current age, cognition, tolerance of not being "perfect", enjoyment of wine or hard cider once in a while, even on what amount "some" is for you. Here's a link to for those who want to spend $36 to read the details, but the abstract did what it's supposed to do and laid out their hypothesis and conclusion.

Here's results of a study and brain imaging of men and women in the UK that sought to control for some factors that may have skewed results of earlier surveys: Moderate alcohol consumption as risk factor for adverse brain outcomes and cognitive decline: longitudinal cohort study The whole article is available, with some nice charts and has this summary:

Setting Community dwelling adults enrolled in the Whitehall II cohort based in the UK (the Whitehall II imaging substudy).

Participants
550 men and women with mean age 43.0 (SD 5.4) at study baseline, none were “alcohol dependent” according to the CAGE screening questionnaire, and all safe to undergo MRI of the brain at follow-up. Twenty three were excluded because of incomplete or poor quality imaging data or gross structural abnormality (such as a brain cyst) or incomplete alcohol use, sociodemographic, health, or cognitive data.

Main outcome measures Structural brain measures included hippocampal atrophy, grey matter density, and white matter microstructure. Functional measures included cognitive decline over the study and cross sectional cognitive performance at the time of scanning.

Results
Higher alcohol consumption over the 30 year follow-up was associated with increased odds of hippocampal atrophy in a dose dependent fashion. While those consuming over 30 units a week were at the highest risk compared with abstainers (odds ratio 5.8, 95% confidence interval 1.8 to 18.6; P≤0.001), even those drinking moderately (14-21 units/week) had three times the odds of right sided hippocampal atrophy (3.4, 1.4 to 8.1; P=0.007). There was no protective effect of light drinking (1-<7 units/week) over abstinence. Higher alcohol use was also associated with differences in corpus callosum microstructure and faster decline in lexical fluency. No association was found with cross sectional cognitive performance or longitudinal changes in semantic fluency or word recall.

Conclusions Alcohol consumption, even at moderate levels, is associated with adverse brain outcomes including hippocampal atrophy. These results support the recent reduction in alcohol guidance in the UK and question the current limits recommended in the US.

Might be time for a glass of wine to digest those gloomy results!
4/4 and still an optimist!
lumia
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Re: Interaction between Alcohol Consumption and Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) Genotype with Cognition in Middle-Aged Men

Post by lumia »

NF52 wrote:Higher alcohol consumption over the 30 year follow-up was associated with increased odds of hippocampal atrophy in a dose dependent fashion. While those consuming over 30 units a week were at the highest risk compared with abstainers (odds ratio 5.8, 95% confidence interval 1.8 to 18.6; P≤0.001), even those drinking moderately (14-21 units/week) had three times the odds of right sided hippocampal atrophy (3.4, 1.4 to 8.1; P=0.007). There was no protective effect of light drinking (1-<7 units/week) over abstinence. Higher alcohol use was also associated with differences in corpus callosum microstructure and faster decline in lexical fluency. No association was found with cross sectional cognitive performance or longitudinal changes in semantic fluency or word recall.[/b]

Might be time for a glass of wine to digest those gloomy results!
When I mean by "once a while," it's clearly well within "light drinking" in the meaning of this paper--one 8 oz beer or hard cider, or 5 oz of red wine, every 2-3 weeks (at most). I suppose it's safe, but I'm not sure.
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Re: Interaction between Alcohol Consumption and Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) Genotype with Cognition in Middle-Aged Men

Post by NF52 »

lumia wrote:When I mean by "once a while," it's clearly well within "light drinking" in the meaning of this paper--one 8 oz beer or hard cider, or 5 oz of red wine, every 2-3 weeks (at most). I suppose it's safe, but I'm not sure.
That sure seems “very light” to me. From listening to several presenters at the Alzheimer’s Association’s virtual conference this week talk about risk reduction, I think it’s way below what would worry them. They’re looking at exercise and control of blood pressure, avoidance of Type 2 diabetes and a Mediterranean style diet (which generally includes light alcohol) as having the largest effect size on brain health in both population studies and randomized control trials.
4/4 and still an optimist!
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