Association between alcohol consumption and frailty in three Chinese cities

Abstract

Background: Frailty is often described as a condition of the elderly but affects all age groups, alcohol consumption is associated with frailty. The aim of this study is to examine the associations between alcohol consumption pattern (ACP) and frailty in three cities in adults. . Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in three cities in China from June 2017 to October 2018. In total, 20,716 residents aged ≥18 years old were selected by using a multi-level stage sampling procedure. Alcohol consumption pattern was assessed by CAGE four-item questionnaire. Frailty was measured by a validated Chinese version of the FRAIL scale. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to examine the association of ACP with pre-frailty and frailty after controlling for varied covariates. Results: In general, the prevalence of pre-frailty and frailty was 35.25% and 11.42%, respectively. After controlling for covariates and interaction of age and ACP, non-problematic drinkers neither had association with pre-frailty(OR: 1.13, 95%CI:0.97-1.31) nor with frailty(OR:0.86,95%CI:0.68-1.12), while problematic drinkers had high odd ratios of pre-frailty(OR: 1.35, 95%CI:1.06-1.72) and frailty(OR:1.52, 95%CI:1.02-2.26) compared with non-drinker. Conclusions: our study found a positive association between problematic drinking and (pre-) frailty, no relationship between non-problematic drinking and (pre-) frailty compared with non-drinking among whole Chinese population. Based on previous findings and ours, we conclude it is important for the prevention of frailty to advocate zero drinking among whole population. Keywords: alcohol consumption, frailty, life course