Wine consumption and dementia in the elderly: A prospective community study in the Bordeaux area

The subjects of this study were about 4,000 residents of the Bordeaux area over age 65. From the study:

In the 318 subjects drinking 3 to 4 standard glasses per day (>250 and up to 500 ml), categorized as moderate drinkers, the crude odds ratio (OR) was 0.18 for incident dementia (p < 0.01) and 0.25 for Alzheimer’s disease (p < 0.03), as compared to the 971 non-drinkers. After adjusting for age, sex, education, occupation, baseline MMSE and other possible confounders, the ORs were respectively 0.19 (p < 0.01) and 0.28 (p < 0.05).

In other words,

1. moderate drinkers had about one fifth (0.18 or 0.19) the probability of incident dementia compared to non-drinkers

2. moderate drinkers had about one fourth (0.25 or 0.28) the probability of Alzheimer’s compared to non-drinkers