In older people with mild cognitive impairment, having a drink now and then -- up to an average of one drink of alcohol each day -- may delay progression to dementia , new research suggests.

In older people with mild cognitive impairment, having a drink now and then -- up to an average of one drink of alcohol each day -- may delay progression to dementia , new research suggests.

"While many studies have assessed alcohol consumption and cognitive function in the elderly, this is the first study to look at how alcohol consumption affects the rate of progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia," study authors Dr. Vincenzo Solfrizzi and Dr. Francesco Panza, from the University of Bari in Italy, said in a statement.

In the study, reported in the medical journal Neurology, the researchers assessed the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment in 1445 subjects and the progression to dementia in 121 patients with mild cognitive impairment.

The participants were between 65 and 84 years of age at the start of the study, and they were followed for 3.5 years. Alcohol use was assessed before the survey.

Drinking was not associated the development of mild cognitive impairment, according to the report. However, once mild impairment occurred, subjects who had up to one drink per day of alcohol had an 85 percent reduced risk of dementia compared with those who abstained.

The benefit was seen with both alcohol in general and with wine in particular.

Having more than one drink a day, however, offered no protection against dementia compared with abstaining, the report indicates.

"The mechanism responsible for why low alcohol consumption appears to protect against the progression to dementia isn't known. However, it is possible that the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain may play a role," Solfrizzi and Panza conclude.

有輕度認知損害的老年人可以喝點酒，一項最新研究發現，每天喝點酒可以延緩病情向癡呆癥的發展。

研究報告撰寫者、意大利巴里大學的溫森佐·索爾弗里茲博士和弗朗西斯科·潘薩博士在一份聲明中說：“此前有很多研究對老年人飲酒與認知功能間的關系進行過探討，而此項研究則首次對飲酒會如何影響輕度認知損害向癡呆癥的發展速度進行了探究。”

此項研究結果在《神經學》醫學期刊上發表。研究人員對1445名研究對象中輕度認知損害的發生及121名有輕度認知損害的病人向癡呆癥的發展進行了研究。

研究對象的年齡在研究開始之時在65歲至84歲之間，他們被跟蹤調查了三年半。研究對象的飲酒情況在調查之前已被確定。

據研究報告顯示，輕度認知損害的發生與飲酒無關。但這種情況一旦發生，每天喝一杯酒的研究對象與那些不喝酒的相比，患癡呆癥的幾率降低了85%。

從總體來看，酒精飲品都可以實現這種功效，其中葡萄酒的功效最強。

報告指出，每天飲酒超過一杯和不喝酒一樣，對預防癡呆癥起不到作用。

索爾弗里茲和潘薩博士總結說：“為何少量飲酒可以預防癡呆癥還沒有答案。這可能與腦部血管的分布有關。”