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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.502
igaa057.502
Abstracts
Session 2883 (Poster)
Cognitive Impairment and Cognition
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Alcohol Consumption and Cognitive Function in an Older Population in China
Bai Anying 1 Hou Bo 2 Chen Junsong 1 Fu Boming 1 1 
Peking University, Beijing, China
2 
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Bradford, England, United Kingdom

2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”154 154
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
The relationship between alcohol consumption and cognitive function has only been studied to a limited extent in China. This paper examines this relationship using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a nationally representative dataset of the Chinese population aged over 45. Alcohol consumption was measured by drinking status (never, former, moderate, excessive drinkers) based on number of standard drinks per week. Mental status and episodic memory function were used as measures of cognitive function. Lagged dependent variable models were used to examine independent associations between alcohol consumption and cognitive function. Our models controlled for demographic factors, socioeconomic factors, baseline cognitive functioning and an indicator for lifestyle. We also tested for an inverted J shaped relationship between alcohol consumption and cognitive functioning. A total of 10404 nondrinkers (60.09%), 2450 former drinkers (14.15%), 1599 moderate drinkers (9.24%) and 1525 excessive drinkers (8.81%) were included. Compared to never drinkers, there were no statistically significant difference between this group and moderate drinking group. While, excessive drinkers were consistently associated with on average 0.13-point decrease in episodic memory scores (p =0.031). For mental intactness, there were no statistically significant differences between never drinkers and other groups. Furthermore, we did not find evidence to support an inverted J-shaped association between standard drinks per week and measures of cognitive functioning. Excessively drinking was associated with greater decline in episodic memory function, but not in mental intactness in elder Chinese population. There is no significant association between moderate drinking and cognitive functioning measures.