There is a gene for something called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). ADH is a protein and it’s important because it is an enzyme we use to break down alcohol. Some research suggests people who don’t produce enough ADH or produce the slower acting enzymes ADH2 and ADH3 are more susceptible to alcoholism. ADH is part of what helps you sober up.

Scientists have long postulated the gene evolved when humans started creating liquor. Then they later found the enzyme in animals, so the theory was changed to animals developed ADH to break down ethanol from fermenting fruits of flowering plants. Fruits appeared about 140 million years ago. There are studies demonstrating some animals, like the fruit fly, evolved ADH between 70 and 135 million years ago.

Alcohol Dehydrogenase - It looks just like you thought it would (image courtesy wikipedia.com)

Then scientific progress went boink again. Héctor Riveros-Rosas at National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City thinks animals got the gene even earlier. By analyzing the DNA sequences from animals, he estimates ADH first appeared 450 million years ago. For those counting at home, that’s 310 million years before we needed it.

Riveros-Rosas’ new theory suggests animals evolved the gene to break down dopamine or other naturally produced hormones. ADH works faster on dopamine, and we probably got lucky it works on ethanol too. Unfortunately animals had to wait 310 million years before we could use the enzyme for our fun. Now that is a dry spell!

(Source: New Scientist)

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Humans are the only species on Earth known to voluntarily consume ethanol. The vast majority of other species have evolved an avoidance for what is essentially a biological poison. Drunk animals are more likely to die and therefore less likely to reproduce, so a trend towards sobriety echoes down the ages in most species. Except us. We will not only go to great lengths to obtain alcohol—even when it is illegal—but we will also consume so much of it we can become ill or die. Why?

It’s Chemical

For most people, drinking small to moderate amounts of alcohol is a pleasurable experience. The pleasure we humans derive from drinking is thought to be due to the effect of alcohol on the brain. A 2009 study conducted in rats found small to medium amounts of alcohol stimulate the release of endorphins—brain “feel good” chemicals. The mechanism is thought to be the same in humans and could be responsible for the slight euphoria many people experience after drinking. Interestingly, the high doses of alcohol were not associated with a greater release of these feel good chemicals.

As many studies can attest, humans will do all sorts of crazy crap to feel good, especially if we can get away with it without being eaten by a predator. Seeing as we are on the top of the food chain essentially and can rely on fellow humans to help us when we are impaired, the potential evolutionary costs of drinking are mitigated for our species. Hence frat parties.

It’s Social Bonding

Alcohol is not referred to as a “social lubricant” for nothing. The consumption of alcohol is known to decrease anxiety and to lower inhibitions in humans, leading sometimes to easier and more enjoyable social interactions. Anecdotally, this is most certainly the case at holiday dinners with otherwise barely tolerable family members. Many important human celebratory events frequently involve alcohol: weddings, birthday parties, holiday parties. Culturally, social drinking is highly acceptable and encouraged—solitary drinking however, is not. Alcohol consumption by humans is closely tied to the fact we are social species.

The use of alcohol in social bonding situations is heavily influenced by culture, even how people behave when drunk is culturally determined and varies from place to place. There is social significance even, to the type of alcohol consumed, it communicates social status information. For example: wine = higher class, educated consumer. Pabst Blue Ribbon = lower class, less educated or ironical hipster (depending on context).

The socializing aspect of drinking alcohol is perhaps the reason for its enduring persistence across most human cultures and most human times—even in the face of its potentially negative biological effects (but perhaps positive theological effects e.g. holding onto the toilet praying you will never drink again if you will stop puking).

It’s a Hobby

Generally speaking, the consumption of alcohol is not considered a hobby unless you happen to be a wine or beer connoisseur. Wine drinking and collecting has become a very popular pastime in the U.S., and a similar situation is occurring with craft beer. There is entire culture and product market surrounding these drinking related hobbies (especially with wine). In addition to the hobby of drinking alcohol, there is a huge hobby related industry for making it at home, both beer and wine. A significant aspect of both types of alcohol related hobbies (the collecting/consuming and the making) is also social as evidenced by the many beer and wine festivals held around the country each year.

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After several beers, you tend to think you’re a bit better looking than you are. Now researchers have scientific proof, you really are more attractive to females when you drink beer. The bad news is you’re more attractive to female mosquitoes.

How mosquitoes find dinner

Mosquitoes use olfactory cues to find their victims. Every person smells a bit different due to different hygiene, diets, or general health conditions. The more attractive the smell, the more likely you’ll be mosquito bait. Some studies have shown pregnant women attract mosquitoes, but I’m not sure what pregnant women and beer drunks have in common. Finding out why some people are more attractive to mosquitoes than others is important, because mosquitoes are vectors for diseases like malaria or West Nile virus. Determining what attracts mosquitoes and neutralizing the attracting scent can play an important role in preventing the spread of diseases. In a study titled Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes by Thierry Lefèvre et al, researchers found people who drink beer smell better to mosquitoes. I guess the mosquitoes know a party when they smell one.

Beer makes you attractive to mosquitoes

25 of the human subjects were asked to drink a liter of beer, while 18 unlucky (or possibly lucky) subjects were given a liter of water. The researchers placed 50 adult female mosquitoes (Anopheles gambiae Giles sensu stricto) who had never eaten blood (read “very hungry”) in a cup downwind from both a subject and an open air vent. At a point in their flight, the mosquitoes have to choose between open air or human stink. The mosquitoes showed a preference for the subjects who drank beer.

This is the setup for the experiment. One of the paths led to the beery subject, the other led to fresh air. No beer drinkers were harmed in the experiment. (image from paper)

The mosquitoes were counted by the number motivated enough to fly upwind, and those smart enough to pick the path which led to a stinky human. Beer consuming subjects significantly motivated more mosquitoes to fly upwind. 47% of the total number of mosquitoes flew upwind for beer drinkers, compared to 38% flying upwind for water drinkers. Of the mosquitoes who flew upwind, 65% picked the correct path to the beery victim compared to 47% picking the path to the water drinking subject. For beer drinkers (and the mosquitoes), that sucks.

All of the subjects were tested before and after drinking their beverage, so it wasn’t just luck that the beer group smelled better. The increase didn’t happen until after they pounded the beer. Their CO2 production (breathing) and body temperature had no effect on attracting mosquitoes. The big question is “why beer”?

Why beer might make you more attractive

The study really doesn’t say why the mosquitoes prefer beer drinkers. It would be interesting to see if the results are the same after consuming a shot of vodka. Since they mention pregnant women are more attractive to mosquitoes than other human snack bars, I wonder if the attraction is hormonal. There are hormones in hops, so that could be a link. A test with vodka could rule out this possibility. It is also possible multiple factors make some humans tastier than others, and hormones are just one attractant.

Lesson learned: when your at your next beer picnic, bring the DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamid).

(Source: Lefèvre T, Gouagna L-C, Dabire KR, Elguero E, Fontenille D, et al. (2010) Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9546. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009546)

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Pissed Pacyderms

Stories of drunk wild elephants have a long history in Africa. Supposedly elephants get sloshed by eating the fermented fruits of the marula tree. Hilarious footage of an elephant purportedly doing just that is included in the 1974 animal documentary “Animals are Beautiful People” but in 2006, researchers showed plowed pachyderms are just a myth. In the paper “Myth, marula, and elephant: an assessment of voluntary ethanol intoxication of the African elephant” published in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, researchers calculated an adult African elephant would have to consume an unrealistic number of overripe marula fruits to get the job done and concluded “there is no clear evidence of inebriation in the field”. What explains the persistence of drunk elephant stories then? The lead author, when discussing the paper with National Geographic, explained: “People just want to believe in drunken elephants”—undoubtedly one of the funniest quotes ever in scientific journalism.

Drunk elephants are funny, but are there drunk elephants? (image from Olivier Delaere)

Elephants may not become intoxicated under natural conditions, but there is evidence elephants can develop a taste for human alcoholic beverages and turn into mean-ass drunks. There are many reported incidents of elephants in India seeking out and drinking human made rice beer. They subsequently tear shit up or even join the not so exalted ranks of drunken Darwin award winners by getting themselves killed. In 2004, a group of elephants reportedly drank rice beer in a remote Indian village, started getting rowdy, and knocked down an electrical pole on themselves, killing 4 of them (God who had to clean that up?).

Blitzed Birds and Skunked Shrews

The only thing more dangerous than driving while drunk is flying when drunk. There are many, many reports of birds —cedar waxwings in particular—getting smashed figuratively and literally on berries that have fermented. Getting drunk for birds often ends the same way it can for humans, that is to say, badly. The most common reports are of drunk birds flying right into buildings/windows or passing out, falling from trees and dying from the impact. I could find little evidence that birds ever get drunk for fun; it happens by accident when berries ferment under certain conditions and the birds are unable to distinguish a fermented berry from a normal one. Symptoms of drunkenness in birds can mimic symptoms of sickness from illness such as the bird flu, which as you can imagine, really freaks people out.

There is very little evidence that the vast majority of animals seek out and consume ethanol when it occurs naturally. This makes sense as animals do not have the infrastructure to protect them from their own bad decisions—such as police officers, ambulances, hospitals, and stomach pumps. If Jonny roadrunner eats fermented cactus fruit, gets smashed and passes out in the middle of Southern Ave in Tempe, Arizona, there won’t be any cadre of his fellow birds picking him up, he’ll be killed. Contrast that to the college student that once shared an emergency room with me with a near fatal blood alcohol content of 0.4 found under the same circumstances—he lived—thanks to the diligent work of his fellow humans. Animals don’t have that luxury. There are studies in fact, that show when fruit bats get accidentally intoxicated, they seek out a type of sugar that helps them sober up faster. We know that’s not the case with frat boys.

Despite this, there are a few animals that have been found to naturally consume ethanol, in particular a Malaysian treeshrew that likes to drink the fermented nectar of the bertam palm tree. However, the tippling treeshrew does not show any observable signs of drunkenness (where’s the fun in that?). Researchers theorize that the ethanol still has some type of pleasurable neurological effect the shrew gets in exchange for acting as a pollinator for the tree.

Sober Primates (excluding us)

So what about our closest relatives, other primates? Turns out they are part of the temperance movement. Katharine Milton, a researcher looking into the evolutionary history of human fondness for ethanol, conducted a survey of primatologists covering 22 different primate species. Specifically she asked at what stage of ripeness monkeys preferred to eat fruit. Not one out of 22 species preferred overripe fruit (fruit with the most ethanol), and it appeared all species in fact, studiously avoided the ethanol containing fruit. Asked if any primatologists had ever observed what appeared to be intoxicated behaviors, only two incidents out of combined thousands of hours of observations were reported, leading the researcher to hypothesize that drunkenness in primates happens very infrequently. This makes sense as a drunk monkey is more likely to end up a dead monkey.

So what does sobriety in our closest relatives have to say about the human predilection for drinking ethanol till we puke? Alcoholic consumption is most likely cultural instead of biological. “As cultural animals, humans have little innate nutritional wisdom,” says Milton, “and for this reason may have unusual difficulty in determining when it is prudent to quit ingesting ethanol”. No shit, right? See prime example above of drunken- passed-out-on-Southern Avenue Arizona frat boy. Our fondness for the stuff, according to Milton, is also apparently fueled by existential angst. “Humans also appear to be the only animals with a highly developed sense of self-awareness and thus they may be the only animals that might wish to escape from their own consciousness”. Having on more than one occasion used alcohol for this exact reason, couldn’t have said it better myself.

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If you drink wine to excess, it may be the worst choice for you.  Researchers (psychiatrists) found a region of the brain in alcoholic wine drinkers was more damaged than the same region in alcoholics who prefer beer or spirits.  This is the first known research that studied alcoholics with a beverage choice.

Do winos have smaller brainos? What do you think?

The hippocampus–not to be confused with much larger, and purpled hippopotamuses– shrinks more in wine drinkers with an alcohol dependency than other drinkers.  The researchers reported in the medical journal Alcohol and Alcoholism the hippocampus is up to 10% smaller in wine alcoholic brains than normal brains

A smaller hippocampus will cause memory loss, navigation and spatial awareness problems (basically the same as drunkenness).  The hippocampus is also the first area affected by Alzheimer’s.  Women are more likely to drink wine than men, and according to the study, are also more likely to suffer the damaging brain effects.

The important information to take away from this research is over indulging to the point of alcoholism is bad.  The situation is worse if you are a wino (perhaps, hence the term), and can cause lasting damage to your body.  The people the researchers studied were not your wine with dinner crowd.  These people were diagnosed alcoholics.  So if you were planning to drink large amounts of wine to gain longevity, think again while you still can.

(Source: independent.co.uk )

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We have all seen the stereotype – fat beer guzzler, with a large protruding gut that would put Santa to shame.  The beer gut is first called “the freshman 15” (or more) when you are in college.  Later people call it for what it is, the beer gut.  The question is, can beer really give you a beer gut?

Research shows it’s the calories, not the beer

In 2003, the Journal of Nutrition published a study to examine this very question.  Scientists followed more than 2,300 drinkers and non-drinkers aged 35 to 79.  They measured the body-mass index (BMI) and the abdominal height of each subject.  The abdominal height is the distance from your spine to the top of your abdomen (how far your tummy sticks out).

Scientists at the University of New York at Buffalo found wine drinkers who had one glass a day tended to have the smallest gut, smaller than non-drinkers on average.  The scientists did also note that the wine drinkers tended to exercise more.  Beer drinkers had no more or less tummy fat than the non-drinkers on average.  Spirit drinkers were the chunkiest of the group.  Maybe we should start calling the beer gut the vodka gut.

Moderate drinkers have smaller stomachs

Researchers also found drinking affected the belly fat of drinkers who drank sporadically more than drinkers who drank regularly.  Drinkers who drank 1 to 2 drinks per day generally had smaller guts than those who drank 1 to 2 drinks per week.  The biggest surprise was  frequent moderate drinkers had smaller stomachs than non-drinkers on average.

So beer does not give you a beer gut, and there is some evidence that moderate regular drinking actually helps your beer gut.  Of course, if you are drinking heavy or large amounts of spirits all bets are off.  Your best bet for the Super Bowl is to have a couple, but don’t go crazy – unless your team wins.  You can always try again next year!

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It seems almost silly at this point.  Red wine seems to cure everything.  Red wine has compounds linked to longevity , cancer cures, and a whole slew of other cures.  Now a recently published study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry finds that there are compounds in red wine that can fight tooth decay.

Is the next big thing wine mouthwash?

The problem with most mouthwashes is that that they kill beneficial bacteria and bad bacteria alike.  Researchers from University of Rochester Medical Center and Cornell University found that the grape pomace (stuff left over after you press the grapes) reduces harmful mouth bacteria by 70 percent to 85 percent.  They tested whole grape extract and grape pomace, but found that the pomace was most effective.

The compounds in the wine that retard the growth of harmful bacteria are known as polyphenols.  The scientists believe the compound prevents the bacteria from producing enzymes necessary for glucan production.  In short, they can’t reproduce.

The scientists are not recommending that we gargle with wine (oh well), but they do believe they can find the compound responsible and include it in a mouthwash.  They also added that wine is acidic and would reduce tooth enamel.

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Warning: Contains Sulfites

Every now and then someone tells me they don’t like red wine and prefer white wine because the sulfites in red wine gives them a headache – commonly known as the Red Wine Headache (RWH).  The label “WARNING: Contains Sulfites” seems to justify their claim.  The question is do the sulfites in red wine really cause headaches?

Good luck at finding wine with no sulfites. It's a natural by-product, so all wine has it.

Sulfites are used as a natural preservative in wine.  The reason it is called a “natural” preservative is because sulfites are a natural byproduct of the fermentation process.  More sulfite is often added by the winery as potassium metabisulfite.  This added preservative allows the wine to age over many years; otherwise it would quickly turn to vinegar.  Organic wines have this aging problem.

All red wine contains sulfites, even the ones labeled “no sulfite added”.  So do all white wines – white wines have much more sulfite on average.  All wines contain 40-80 mg/liter of sulfites on average.  Organic wines contain less, but they still have sulfite in them.  You cannot make wine without making sulfites. It does not matter which country the wine originates from.  The US and Australia list sulfite warnings on their labels, but the Europeans are not required to do so.  European wines still contain the same amount of sulfites.

Sulfites are also used in dried fruit; no one claims that they got a headache from a bag of dried apricots.  Pancake syrup typically contains more sulfite than red wine.  The human body also produces sulfites through normal biochemical processes, about 1000 mg per day.

Some studies have shown that some people can have strong reactions to sulfites.  Slightly less than 1% of the population lacks an enzyme to break down the sulfites.  In comparison, peanut allergies affect about 4% of the population.

Research doesn’t support RWH/Sulfite link

For these people the inability to break down sulfites can be a life threatening problem – much more serious than a headache.  Symptoms typically include restricted breathing to varying degrees, especially in asthmatics prescribed steroids.  Skin rashes, itching or nausea are rarer symptoms, but headaches are not typically a symptom of sulfite reactions.  Despite the seriousness of some reactions, the FDA has reported only 19 sulfite related deaths since 1990.  None of these deaths were related to red wine.

Researchers in Australia studied a group of people who were very sensitive to sulfites.   The researchers gave these people a drink that contained 300 mg/liter of sulfites, much higher than the amount typically in red wine.  Only 4 test subjects out of 24 showed an asthmatic response.  None of the subjects responded adversely to drinks with 100 mg/liter. This study published in Thorax (2001 Oct; 56 (10):763-9), showed that “only a small number of wine sensitive asthmatic patients responded to a single dose challenge with sulfited wine under laboratory conditions. This may suggest that the role of sulphites [sic] and / or wine in triggering asthmatic responses has been overestimated.”

Even white wine has sulfites

Do we know what causes RWH?

This still does not answer the question about RWH.  The fact is no current peer reviewed medical research links sulfites to headaches.  This does not mean that red wine does not cause headaches for some people.  There is research that shows that red wine does cause headaches for some, the culprit however is not the sulfites.

Most recent medical studies believe that prostaglandins, hormone-like substances, may be responsible for the production of some types of pain and inflammation and could be the culprit in RWH. Herbert Kaufman, M.D. and Dwight Starr, M.D. from Mt. Zion Hospital and Medical Center showed a significant decrease in headaches in subjects prone to RWH and given prostaglandin inhibitors.

If you are still in doubt, try eating a bag of dried orange apricots.  These are heavily sulfited.  If you don’t experience the very rare headache, or the much more common respiratory problems, you are not sensitive to sulfites.  The best advice is to keep a journal of red wines that you try.  Note which wines give you a headache, and which wines that have no effect.  In the future, drink the red wines that do not give you a headache.

One last note, the headache you get from several wines the night before is called a hangover.  Those can be avoided by not drinking as much!

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Beer reduces kidney cancer

Researchers at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden found beer can reduce your risk for kidney cancer, and it isn’t a subtle reduction.  Averaging one to two beers a day will reduce your risk for kidney cancer by a whopping 40%!  855 kidney cancer patients, and 1204 cancer free subjects were studied, according to the study published in the British Journal of Cancer.  Researchers think it is the antioxidants and antimutagenics (a substance that can bond to cancer causing substances) present in alcoholic drinks are responsible for the health benefits.

There's a bit of health in every glass, in moderation

Beer reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease

In Spain, researchers found beer reduces your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.  They think the silicon present in beer protects against the effects of aluminum on the brain.  The study in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology reported “moderate beer consumption… could perhaps be taken into account as a component of the dietary habits of the population.”  The study was on mice given aluminum nitrate in their water.  They separated the mice into 4 groups, mice with beer, mice with silicic acid in water, mice with water, and a fourth group that was not given aluminum nitrate at all.  The mice with beer or silicic acid fared the best, having the least amount of aluminum in their blood.  It is not certain if the benefits extend to humans.

Of course, as usual, scientists state that the effects are only observed with moderate consumption.  The benefits drop off significantly after your second pint.  So here’s to your health!

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According to Queensland Brain Institute director Professor Perry Bartlett in Australia, drinking alcohol does not kill brain cells, even if it feels like it did the next morning. This commonly accepted notion that alcohol destroys large sections of the brain turns out to be an old wives’ tale.

In a recent study, reported to many top neuroscientists at Cairns, alcohol was found to have no effect on the lifecycle of brain cells.  What you do while drunk, say hit your head on the bar, may still have some effect.

There is no evidence that shows alcohol kills brain cells.  In moderation, alcohol has been shown to have positive effects on the body.  It acts as an antioxidant, helping blood vessels.  Italian researchers have shown that a bottle of red wine can help prevent dementia in old age.

Research by Professor Bartlett has found that our brain replenishes cells every day.  Other areas of his research include regenerating brain cells in older brains, or brains damaged from strokes.

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Liquor is the beverage of choice for underage drinkers, according to a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The study of public school students in grades 9-12 was conducted in 2005 across four states, Arkansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming.  Current alcohol use was defined as one drink in the past 30 days, and binge drinking was defined as five or more drinks in one day within the past 30 days.  The study also compared results from a 1990 survey.

Liquor was determined to be the beverage of choice, averaging about 40% of the respondents.  Beer followed a distant second, while wine barely registered.  The prevalence of binge drinking ranged from 28.6% in New Mexico to 32.0% in Wyoming.  Wyoming also listed the highest reported current use at 45.4%.  Both drinking and binge drinking were up from the 1990 study.

Bottles are easier to sneak than kegs

There are many contributing factors to this.  The age range sampled typically drinks for the alcoholic affect, not the flavor of the beverage.  A recent Gallop poll showed that people 18-49 years old prefer beer over other beverages.  Spirits are usually mixed with other drinks such as soda or fruit juice, which might make it easier for younger people to drink.  It’s also easier to sneak out a bottle of rum from mom and dad’s liquor cabinet than a case of beer.  Wine is usually comes in a 750 ml bottle and at a significantly lower alcohol content, which would explain why it is listed at the bottom of choice beverages.

Excessive alcohol drinking contributes to an estimated 4,500 deaths of under aged drinkers in the USA every year.  The CDC conducted the study because the “data are important because numerous evidence-based strategies for reducing underage drinking rates are beverage-specific, including increasing alcohol excise taxes and increasing restrictions on the distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages.”

The report cited that the study did have some limitations.  The sample size was not representative of larger states, the questionnaire was subject to recall since the answers were self-reported, and it only accounts for public school students.

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