@article{ref1,
title="Alcohol Use and Frailty in Community-Dwelling Older Persons Aged 65 to 70 Years",
journal="Journal of frailty and aging",
year="2014",
author="Seematter-Bagnoud, L. and Spagnoli, J. and Büla, C. and Santos-Eggimann, B.",
volume="3",
number="1",
pages="9-14",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Alcohol use has beneficial as well as adverse consequences on health, but few studies examined its role in the development of age-related frailty. <br><br>OBJECTIVES: To describe the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between alcohol intake and frailty in older persons. <br><br>DESIGN: The Lausanne cohort 65+ population-based study, launched in 2004. SETTING: Community. PARTICIPANTS: One thousand five hundred sixty-four persons aged 65-70 years. MEASUREMENTS: Annual data collection included demographics, health and functional status, extended by a physical examination every 3 years. Alcohol use (AUDIT-C), and Fried's frailty criteria were measured at baseline and 3-year follow-up. Participants were categorized into robust (0 frailty criterion) and vulnerable (1+ criteria). <br><br>RESULTS: Few participants (13.0%) reported no alcohol consumption over the past year, 57.8% were light-to-moderate drinkers, while 29.3% drank above recommended thresholds (18.7% &quot;at risk&quot; and 10.5% &quot;heavy&quot; drinkers). At baseline, vulnerability was most frequent in non-drinkers (43.0%), least frequent in light-to-moderate drinkers (26.2%), and amounted to 31.9% in &quot;heavy&quot; drinkers showing a reverse J-curve pattern. In multivariate analysis, compared to light-to-moderate drinkers, non-drinkers had twice higher odds of prevalent (adjOR: 2.24; 95%CI:1.39-3.59; p=.001), as well as 3-year incident vulnerability (adjOR: 2.00; 95%CI:1.02-3.91; p=.043). No significant association was observed among &quot;at risk&quot; and &quot;heavy&quot; drinkers. <br><br>CONCLUSION: Non-drinkers had two-times higher odds of prevalent and 3-year incident vulnerability, even after adjusting for their baseline poorer health status. Although residual confounding is still possible, these results likely reflect a healthy survival effect among drinkers while those who experienced health- or alcohol-related problems stopped drinking earlier.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="2260-1341",
doi="10.14283/jfa.2014.2",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.14283/jfa.2014.2"
}