Alcohol and aging: From epidemiology to mechanism

Alcohol is one of the most widely encountered drugs in the world and is credited with a wealth of health interactions. Light to moderate regular consumption (14-28 g daily) can promote heart health, protect against Type II diabetes, and likely extend overall lifespan. However, higher consumption rates lead to the detrimental effects more widely associated with ethanol consumption, including decreased motor control, cardiotoxicity, insulin resistance, and liver disease. Despite high consumption rates in the elderly population, there has been little focus on alcohol's multifaceted effects in the context of aging. Ethanol interacts with numerous genetic targets that are already associated with aging (such as mitigation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin and activation of FOXO3A), and its dose-dependent lifespan extension depends on still poorly understood connections to these pathways. This review focuses on ethanol's relationship to aging and lifespan in multiple animal models, and it demonstrates how understanding the complicated role of this ubiquitous chemical could be vital in order to apply our knowledge of mechanisms mediating the aging process to the human population.