Beer or wine? A new Swedish research carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg and published in BJS bets on the wine. Started in 1968 and made on 1,458 women, the survey revealed this alcoholic beverage protects against dementia.
At the beginning of the study, the subjects rated how much wine, beer and liquor they drank on a seven-step scale from 'never' to 'daily.' If the subject said she had been drinking a particular beverage more than once monthly, she was assigned as a consumer of that beverage. 34 years later, 162 subjects had developed dementia.

The subjects who had reported drinking wine had a significantly lower rate of dementia, a link not found among consumers of beer or liquor.
"The group that had the lowest proportion of dementia were those who had reported that the only alcohol they drank was wine," said lead researcher Professor Lauren Lissner.

The researchers point that the results apply just for women, as men have a different drinking pattern, and it is not an urge for women to start or increase wine consumption.

"There may be other factors in women who drink wine that provide them with protection against dementia, factors that we can't measure. But the correlation found is a strong one and can't be explained by other factors that we can measure, such as education, BMI, and smoking," said Lissner.

Moreover, the drinking habit of today's Swedish young women is very different from that of the previous generations. Today, wine and liquor are preferred over beer, compared to earlier generations. In the poll of this study, less than 20% of middle-aged women consumed wine weekly, compared to over 50% of women of the same age in our days.

"These findings, in combination with the fact that women today drink more wine than 40 years ago, show that it is important to continue to do research on this correlation. Other research methods will be needed in order to see what role wine and other alcoholic beverages play in the development of dementia," said Lissner.