Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-10-12.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Royal Colleges on potential links between drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco and Alzheimer’s disease.
Jane Ellison
Improving the treatment and care of people with dementia, reducing the incidence of dementia and improving dementia research, is a key priority for the Government.
My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has regular meetings with various stakeholders, including Royal Colleges, in which a wide range of topics are discussed. There have been no meetings to discuss the potential links between alcohol, tobacco and Alzheimer’s disease specifically.
Studies investigating whether alcohol consumption is linked to dementia risk have had mixed results and research is ongoing. However, very heavy drinking is known to cause alcohol-related dementia, also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome.
Public Health England (PHE) has made dementia risk reduction one of their seven public health priorities for the next five years. In May 2014 PHE and the UK Health Forum published the Blackfriars Consensus, a statement calling for action on dementia risk reduction which was signed by 60 organisations and individuals working on dementia and other non-communicable diseases, as well as by the Secretary of State and the Health Ministers from the devolved administrations.
PHE is now working closely with the Alzheimer’s Society and a range of others partners to deliver concerted action to reduce people’s risk of dementia by supporting them to live healthier lives and manage pre-existing conditions that increase their risk of dementia. Their programme includes work to further develop the evidence base and improve modelling of incidence and prevalence, to embed dementia risk reduction messages into health improvement and secondary prevention activity, and to raise public and professional awareness and understanding of what can be done to reduce dementia risk.
On the latter PHE is engaging with the Royal College of General Practitioners as well as others such as Health Education England and the relevant sector skills councils.
