Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:25:44.293Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The interplay between cognitive ability, alcohol consumption, and health characteristics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2017

E. Degerud ,
E. Ystrom ,
K. Tambs ,
I. Ariansen ,
J. Mørland ,
P. Magnus ,
G. Davey Smith  and
Ø. Næss
E. Degerud*
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway
E. Ystrom
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway
K. Tambs
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway
I. Ariansen
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway
J. Mørland
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, P.O box 1171, Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway
P. Magnus
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway
G. Davey Smith
Affiliation:
MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Senate House, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TH, UK
Ø. Næss
Affiliation:
Norwegian Institute of Public Health, P.O Box 4404, N-0403 Oslo, Norway Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, P.O box 1130, Blindern, 0318 Oslo, Norway
*
Author for correspondence: E. Degerud, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Higher cognitive ability is associated with favourable health characteristics. The relation between ability and alcohol consumption, and their interplay with other health characteristics, is unclear. We aimed to assess the relationship between cognitive ability and alcohol consumption and to assess whether alcohol consumption relates differently to health characteristics across strata of ability.

Methods

For 63 120 Norwegian males, data on cognitive ability in early adulthood were linked to midlife data on alcohol consumption frequency (times per month, 0–30) and other health characteristics, including cardiovascular risk factors and mental distress. Relations were assessed using linear regression and reported as unstandardised beta coefficients [95% confidence interval (CI)].

Results

The mean ± s.d. frequency of total alcohol consumption in the sample was 4.0 ± 3.8 times per month. In the low, medium, and high group of ability, the frequencies were 3.0 ± 3.3, 3.7 ± 3.5, and 4.7 ± 4.1, respectively. In the full sample, alcohol consumption was associated with physical activity, heart rate, fat mass, smoking, and mental distress. Most notably, each additional day of consumption was associated with a 0.54% (0.44–0.64) and 0.14% (0.09–0.18) increase in the probability of current smoking and mental distress, respectively. In each strata of ability (low, medium, high), estimates were 0.87% (0.57–1.17), 0.48% (0.31–0.66) and 0.49% (0.36–0.62) for current smoking, and 0.44% (0.28–0.60), 0.10% (0.02–0.18), and 0.09% (0.03–0.15) for mental distress, respectively.

Conclusions

Participants with low cognitive ability drink less frequently, but in this group, more frequent alcohol consumption is more strongly associated with adverse health characteristics.

Keywords

alcohol drinkingbehaviour and behaviour mechanismscardiovascular diseasesdrinking behaviour
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 48 , Issue 12 , September 2018 , pp. 2011 - 2022
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ariansen, I, Mortensen, L, Igland, J, Tell, GS, Tambs, K, Graff-Iversen, S et al. (2015) The educational gradient in coronary heart disease: the association with cognition in a cohort of 57279 male conscripts. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 69, 322–329.Google Scholar
Batty, GD, Deary, IJ and Macintyre, S (2006) Childhood IQ and life course socioeconomic position in relation to alcohol induced hangovers in adulthood: the Aberdeen children of the 1950s study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 60, 872–874.Google Scholar
Batty, GD, Deary, IJ, Schoon, I, Emslie, C, Hunt, K and Gale, CR (2008) Childhood mental ability and adult alcohol intake and alcohol problems: the 1970 British cohort study. American Journal of Public Health 98, 2237–2243.Google Scholar
Batty, GD, Deary, IJ, Schoon, I and Gale, CR (2007) Mental ability across childhood in relation to risk factors for premature mortality in adult life: the 1970 British cohort study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 61, 997–1003.Google Scholar
Batty, GD, Shipley, MJ, Dundas, R, Macintyre, S, Der, G, Mortensen, LH et al. (2009) Does IQ explain socio-economic differentials in total and cardiovascular disease mortality? Comparison with the explanatory power of traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors in the Vietnam experience study. European Heart Journal 30, 1903–1909.Google Scholar
Beard, E, Brown, J, West, R, Angus, C, Brennan, A, Holmes, J et al. (2016) Deconstructing the alcohol harm paradox: a population based survey of adults in England. PloS ONE 11, e0160666.Google Scholar
Bramness, JG, Walby, FA, Hjellvik, V, Selmer, R and Tverdal, A (2010) Self-reported mental health and its gender differences as a predictor of suicide in the middle-aged. American Journal of Epidemiology 172, 160–166.Google Scholar
Brien, SE, Ronksley, PE, Turner, BJ, Mukamal, KJ and Ghali, WA (2011) Effect of alcohol consumption on biological markers associated with risk of coronary heart disease: systematic review and meta-analysis of interventional studies. BMJ 342, d636.Google Scholar
Chen, L, Smith, GD, Harbord, RM and Lewis, SJ (2008) Alcohol intake and blood pressure: a systematic review implementing a Mendelian randomization approach. PLoS Medicine 5, e52.Google Scholar
Cheng, H and Furnham, A (2013) Correlates of adult binge drinking: evidence from a British cohort. PloS ONE 8, e78838.Google Scholar
Clouston, SA, Richards, M, Cadar, D and Hofer, SM (2015) Educational inequalities in health behaviors at midlife: is there a role for early-life cognition? Journal of Health and Social Behavior 56, 323–340.Google Scholar
Corley, J, Jia, X, Brett, CE, Gow, AJ, Starr, JM, Kyle, JA et al. (2011) Alcohol intake and cognitive abilities in old age: the Lothian birth cohort 1936 study. Neuropsychology 25, 166–175.Google Scholar
Deary, IJ (2013) Intelligence. Current Biology 23, R673–R676.Google Scholar
Devlin, B, Daniels, M and Roeder, K (1997) The heritability of IQ. Nature 388, 468–471.Google Scholar
Fleming, JP, Kellam, SG and Brown, CH (1982) Early predictors of age at first use of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 9, 285–303.Google Scholar
Gale, CR, Hatch, SL, Batty, GD and Deary, IJ (2009) Intelligence in childhood and risk of psychological distress in adulthood: the 1958 national child development survey and the 1970 British cohort study. Intelligence 37, 592–599.Google Scholar
Gottfredson, LS (1997) Mainstream science on intelligence: an editorial with 52 signatories, history, and bibliography (reprinted from The Wall Street Journal, 1994) Intelligence 24, 13–23.Google Scholar
Hakulinen, C, Elovainio, M, Batty, GD, Virtanen, M, Kivimaki, M and Jokela, M (2015) Personality and alcohol consumption: pooled analysis of 72949 adults from eight cohort studies. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 151, 110–114.Google Scholar
Harrell, FE (2013) Harrell Miscellaneous ‘Hmisc’. Package for R statistical software, version 4.0-3, https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Hmisc/Hmisc.pdfGoogle Scholar
Hatch, SL, Jones, PB, Kuh, D, Hardy, R, Wadsworth, ME and Richards, M (2007) Childhood cognitive ability and adult mental health in the British 1946 birth cohort. Social Science and Medicine 64, 2285–2296.Google Scholar
Hunt, E, Coggan, P, Berg, C and Tianwattanatana, P (1984) The effects of social drinking practices on cognitive performance. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, unpublished manuscript, 1984, described in Parsons OA. Cognitive functioning in sober social drinkers: a review and critique. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 1986;47(2):101–114.Google Scholar
Johansen, D, Friis, K, Skovenborg, E and Gronbaek, M (2006) Food buying habits of people who buy wine or beer: cross sectional study. BMJ 332, 519–522.Google Scholar
Johnson, W, Hicks, BM, McGue, M and Iacono, WG (2009) How intelligence and education contribute to substance use: hints from the Minnesota twin family study. Intelligence 37, 613–624.Google Scholar
Kanazawa, S and Hellberg, JEEU (2010) Intelligence and substance use. Review of General Psychology 14, 382–396.Google Scholar
Knott, CS, Coombs, N, Stamatakis, E and Biddulph, JP (2015) All cause mortality and the case for age specific alcohol consumption guidelines: pooled analyses of up to 10 population based cohorts. BMJ 350, h384.Google Scholar
Kubicka, L, Matejcek, Z, Dytrych, Z and Roth, Z (2001) IQ and personality traits assessed in childhood as predictors of drinking and smoking behaviour in middle-aged adults: a 24-year follow-up study. Addiction 96, 1615–1628.Google Scholar
Latvala, A, Rose, RJ, Pulkkinen, L, Dick, DM and Kaprio, J (2014) Childhood verbal development and drinking behaviors from adolescence to young adulthood: a discordant twin-pair analysis. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research 38, 457–465.Google Scholar
Management of Substance Abuse Team (2014) Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2014 Ed. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.Google Scholar
Marmot, M and Kivimaki, M (2009) Social inequalities in mortality: a problem of cognitive function? European Heart Journal 30, 1819–1820.Google Scholar
Mortensen, LH, Sorensen, TI and Gronbaek, M (2005) Intelligence in relation to later beverage preference and alcohol intake. Addiction 100, 1445–1452.Google Scholar
Muller, M, Kowalewski, R, Metzler, S, Stettbacher, A, Rossler, W and Vetter, S (2013) Associations between IQ and alcohol consumption in a population of young males: a large database analysis. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 48, 1993–2005.Google Scholar
Nickerson, R (1998) Confirmation bias: a ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology 2, 175–220.Google Scholar
Norwegian Directorate of Health (2012) Unpublished survey of the general population, performed in conjunction with a campaign named “Hvite uker”. The survey can be obtained by contacting the Directorate: https://helsedirektoratet.no/English.Google Scholar
Ochsner, KN and Gross, JJ (2005) The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9, 242–249.Google Scholar
Ochsner, KN, Silvers, JA and Buhle, JT (2012) Functional imaging studies of emotion regulation: a synthetic review and evolving model of the cognitive control of emotion. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1251, E1–E24.Google Scholar
Osterberg, EL (2011) Alcohol tax changes and the use of alcohol in Europe. Drug and Alcohol Review 30, 124–129.Google Scholar
Parker, ES and Noble, EP (1977) Alcohol consumption and cognitive functioning in social drinkers. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 38, 1224–1232.Google Scholar
Plomin, R and Deary, IJ (2015) Genetics and intelligence differences: five special findings. Molecular Psychiatry 20, 98–108.Google Scholar
Polderman, TJ, Benyamin, B, de Leeuw, CA, Sullivan, PF, van Bochoven, A, Visscher, PM et al. (2015) Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies. Nature Genetics 47, 702–709.Google Scholar
Rehm, J, Mathers, C, Popova, S, Thavorncharoensap, M, Teerawattananon, Y and Patra, J (2009) Global burden of disease and injury and economic cost attributable to alcohol use and alcohol-use disorders. Lancet 373, 2223–2233.Google Scholar
Richards, M, Stephen, A and Mishra, G (2010) Health returns to cognitive capital in the British 1946 birth cohort. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies 1, 16.Google Scholar
Roerecke, M and Rehm, J (2010) Irregular heavy drinking occasions and risk of ischemic heart disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. American Journal of Epidemiology 171, 633–644.Google Scholar
Roerecke, M and Rehm, J (2012) The cardioprotective association of average alcohol consumption and ischaemic heart disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Addiction 107, 1246–1260.Google Scholar
Ronksley, PE, Brien, SE, Turner, BJ, Mukamal, KJ and Ghali, WA (2011) Association of alcohol consumption with selected cardiovascular disease outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ 342, d671.Google Scholar
RStudio-Team (2015) RStudio: Integrated Development for R. Boston, MA: RStudio, Inc.Google Scholar
Sjolund, S, Hemmingsson, T and Allebeck, P (2015) IQ and level of alcohol consumption-findings from a national survey of Swedish conscripts. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research 39, 548–555.Google Scholar
Søgaard, A, Bjelland, I, Tell, GS and Røysamb, E (2003) A comparison of the CONOR mental health index to the HSCL-10 and HADS. Norsk Epidemiologi 13, 279–284.Google Scholar
Stautz, K, Pechey, R, Couturier, DL, Deary, IJ and Marteau, TM (2016) Do executive function and impulsivity predict adolescent health behaviour after accounting for intelligence? Findings from the ALSPAC cohort. PloS ONE 11, e0160512.Google Scholar
Sundet, JM, Barlaug, DG and Torjussen, TM (2004) The end of the Flynn effect? A study of secular trends in mean intelligence test scores of Norwegian conscripts during half a century. Intelligence 32, 349–362.Google Scholar
Sundet, JM, Eriksen, W and Tambs, K (2008) Intelligence correlations between brothers decrease with increasing age difference evidence for shared environmental effects in young adults. Psychological Science 19, 843–847.Google Scholar
Sundet, JM, Tambs, K, Magnus, P and Berg, K (1988) On the question of secular trends in the heritability of intelligence-test scores – a study of Norwegian twins. Intelligence 12, 47–59.Google Scholar
Taylor, MD, Hart, CL, Davey Smith, G, Starr, JM, Hole, DJ, Whalley, LJ et al. (2003) Childhood mental ability and smoking cessation in adulthood: prospective observational study linking the Scottish mental survey 1932 and the midspan studies. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 57, 464–465.Google Scholar
Toplak, ME, Sorge, GB, Benoit, A, West, RF and Stanovich, KE (2010) Decision-making and cognitive abilities: a review of associations between Iowa gambling task performance, executive functions, and intelligence. Clinical Psychology Review 30, 562–581.Google Scholar
Tucker-Drob, EM and Bates, TC (2016) Large cross-national differences in gene x socioeconomic status interaction on intelligence. Psychological Science 27, 138–149.Google Scholar
Wennberg, P, Andersson, T and Bohman, M (2002) Psychosocial characteristics at age 10; differentiating between adult alcohol use pathways: a prospective longitudinal study. Addictive Behaviors 27, 115–130.Google Scholar
White, J and Batty, GD (2011) Intelligence across childhood in relation to illegal drug use in adulthood: 1970 British cohort study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 66, 767–774.Google Scholar
White, JW, Gale, CR and Batty, GD (2012) Intelligence quotient in childhood and the risk of illegal drug use in middle-age: the 1958 National child development survey. Annals of Epidemiology 22, 654–657.Google Scholar
Wickham, H (2009) ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Windle, M and Blane, HT (1989) Cognitive ability and drinking behavior in a national sample of young adults. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research 13, 43–48.Google Scholar
Ystrom, E, Reichborn-Kjennerud, T, Aggen, SH and Kendler, KS (2011) Alcohol dependence in men: reliability and heritability. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research 35, 1716–1722.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Degerud et al. supplementary material

Figure S1

Download Degerud et al. supplementary material(File)
File 131.2 KB
Supplementary material: File

Degerud et al. supplementary material

Table S1

Download Degerud et al. supplementary material(File)
File 17 KB