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. 2020 Jun 11;12(6):1746.
doi: 10.3390/nu12061746.

Alcohol Drinking and Health in Ageing: A Global Scale Analysis of Older Individual Data through the Harmonised Dataset of ATHLOS

Stefanos Tyrovolas  1   2   3 , Dimitris Panaretos  3 , Christina Daskalopoulou  4 , Iago Gine-Vazquez  1   2 , Albert Sanchez Niubo  1   2 , Beatriz Olaya  1   2 , Martin Bobak  5 , Martin Prince  4 , Matthew Prina  4 , Jose Luis Ayuso-Mateos  2   6   7 , Francisco Felix Caballero  8   9 , Esther Garcia-Esquinas  8   9 , Arndt Holger  10 , Sergei Scherbov  11   12   13 , Warren Sanderson  11   14 , Ilenia Gheno  15 , Ilona Koupil  16   17 , Jerome Bickenbach  18   19 , Somnath Chatterji  20 , Seppo Koskinen  21 , Alberto Raggi  22 , Andrzej Pajak  23 , Beata Tobiasz-Adamczyk  24 , Josep Maria Haro  1   2 , Demosthenes Panagiotakos  3
Affiliations

Alcohol Drinking and Health in Ageing: A Global Scale Analysis of Older Individual Data through the Harmonised Dataset of ATHLOS

Stefanos Tyrovolas et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

We investigated the relation between alcohol drinking and healthy ageing by means of a validated health status metric, using individual data from the Ageing Trajectories of Health: Longitudinal Opportunities and Synergies (ATHLOS) project. For the purposes of this study, the ATHLOS harmonised dataset, which includes information from individuals aged 65+ in 38 countries, was analysed (n = 135,440). Alcohol drinking was reflected by means of three harmonised variables: alcohol drinking frequency, current and past alcohol drinker. A set of 41 self-reported health items and measured tests were used to generate a specific health metric. In the harmonised dataset, the prevalence of current drinking was 47.5% while of past drinking was 26.5%. In the pooled sample, current alcohol drinking was positively associated with better health status among older adults ((b-coef (95% CI): 1.32(0.45 to 2.19)) and past alcohol drinking was inversely related (b-coef (95% CI): -0.83 (-1.51 to -0.16)) with health status. Often alcohol consumption appeared to be beneficial only for females in all super-regions except Africa, both age group categories (65-80 years old and 80+), both age group categories, as well as among all the financial status categories (all p < 0.05). Regional analysis pictured diverse patterns in the association for current and past alcohol drinkers. Our results report the need for specific alcohol intake recommendations among older adults that will help them maintain a better health status throughout the ageing process.

Keywords: ATHLOS; ageing; alcohol drinking; health status; older adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no relationships that could be construed as a conflict of interest and they have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Trajectories of health status from the ages of 65 to 95+ years old, by frequency of alcohol drinking for the total ATHLOS sample. Health ageing metric ranges from 0–100; Ageing Trajectories of Health: Longitudinal Opportunities and Synergies (ATHLOS).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trajectories of health status metric from the ages of 65 to 95+ years old by frequency of alcohol drinking for males (A) and females (B). Healthy ageing metric ranges from 0–100.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Alcohol drinking [frequency of drinking (A), past drinking (B) and current drinking (C)] and its relationship with health status metric among older adults by super-regions. Frequency of alcohol drinking is expressed as never, rare and often. Past and current alcohol drinking are following a binary categorization of yes vs no. Americas includes the regions of North and South America; Asia includes regions in Asia and Oceania as they are reflected within the ATHLOS data.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Alcohol drinking [frequency of drinking (A), past drinking (B) and current drinking (C)] and its relationship with health status metric among older adults by super-regions. Frequency of alcohol drinking is expressed as never, rare and often. Past and current alcohol drinking are following a binary categorization of yes vs no. Americas includes the regions of North and South America; Asia includes regions in Asia and Oceania as they are reflected within the ATHLOS data.
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