Premium
Alcoholic cognitive deterioration and nutritional deficiencies
Author(s) -
Molina J. A.,
Bermejo F.,
Ser T.,
JiménezJiménez F. J.,
Herranz A.,
FernándezCalle P.,
Ortuño B.,
Villanueva C.,
Sainz M. J.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
acta neurologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.967
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1600-0404
pISSN - 0001-6314
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0404.1994.tb02651.x
Subject(s) - chronic alcoholic , thiamine , cognition , medicine , vitamin , vitamin b12 , psychology , wernicke encephalopathy , effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance , psychiatry
Chronic alcoholic patients frequently exhibit a mild to moderate cognitive impairment that has been related to Wernicke‐Korsakoff encephalopathy and attributed tentatively to nutritional and vitamin deficiencies. To elucidate the posible relation between alcoholic cognitive deterioration (ACD) and nutritional and vitamin deficiencies, several tests of intelligence and memory were administered to 54 chronic alcoholic patients and 30 controls. Serum levels of thiamine, folic acid, vitamins B12, A, and E, and certain nutritional indexes were determined in most of the subjects. The alcoholics scored significantly lower in intellectual and visuospatial tasks but not in verbal memory tasks. They had a lower serum level for thiamine but not of the remaining vitamins. However, the correlations between serum thiamin and cognitive performance scores were low, and according to stepwise regression analysis, duration of alcohol intake and education were the variables with predictive value for intellectual and memory test performance. These results suggest that serum thiamin deficiency is not the main pathogenetic factor related to ACD.