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Alcohol



Beer vessels dated 3500 years ago



Some people believe it provides Nutritional value, religious ceremonies, socializing

Sustained patterns of drinking

  • How much they consume

  • How quickly

  • Where?

  • The person’s biology/constitution/physical health



Continuum: physical health issues



Problems as alcohol use increase past 2 drinks daily: heart, liver bone, endocrine, pancreas, brain, gastrointestinal, and immune system



  • Toxic molecule



What determines who can and can’t drink

  • Approx 90% do not experience medical harm 

  • 10% drink harmful amounts




Risks

  • Genes

  • Family history

  • Age of onset

  • Stress

  • Sex

  • Availability  

    • It’s very available 



What is considered one drink?



Beer = malt liquor=table wine=  shots of distilled spirits 




Whose consuming?



  • 60 mil. People 12 & over reported drinking in the past month

  • 16.2 18 or older reported heavy alcohol use in past month







Heavy drinking

  • Binge drinking on 5 or more days in the past month



Binge drinking

  • A pattern of drinking alc that brings blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 percent 

  • A female has 4 or more drinks, or a male has 5 or more drinks within about 2 hrs



Binge drinking and heavy alc use can increase an individual’s risk of AUD



What is alcohol?



  • Two carbons

  • Oxygen 

  • 6 hydrogens

  • Water and fat-soluble

  • First is metabolized in the liver 



Metabolism of ethanol into toxic and caloric molecule



Binds to proteins/DNA and can cause mutations. Classified as a group 1 carcinogen by the WHOs internationa; agency for research on cancer



Most of the metabolism happens in liver



Ethanol → aceraldehyde (toxic molecule) →  acetate caoloric molecule 



The liver is stressed when having to frequently process ethanol



.02-.04: mild intoxication: relaxed

.05-.07: moderate intoxication: euphoria 

.08-.10 advanced moderate intoxication: euphoria intensifies 

.11-.15: advanced intoxication: “high” is reduced, depressive effects

cog. Function becomes impaired 

.16



Stimulant effects are seen at lower doses than the sedation effects 




The stimulant effect is not seen in all indiv.

Light drinkers don’t show stim. After 2-3 drinks

Heavy drinkers report stim effect

Light drinkers do not

Heavy drinkers report a reduced sedative response compared to light drinkers



Why the differences?



  • Alcohol works has dose-dependent responses on different receptors 



Diagnosing AUD

  • Dsm criteria can be used

  • Aud (alcohol use disorder identification test



Diagnostic criteria checklist 




If everyone cut their alc consumption in half, we could save a million lives globally



Associated harm

  • 3 mil deaths from harmful use of alc

  • 90k people die every year

  • Harmful use 




Benerfits to low to moderate abuse

  • Lower incedencve of heart disease 

  • Reduction in anxoety and stress

  • Enhanced immune system

  • Increased bone diverwsity

Heavy use harm

  • Memory prob.

  • Stroke

  • lung/liver/nuro disease

  • Cancer

  • Suppression to immune system\




Immune system

  • Aud associated with significant increase in incidence and severity of bacterial pneumonia, tuberculosis

Gut-Liver-brain axis and AUD



  • Complex multidirectional interactions between gut (gI tract)



Releasing neurotransmitter and regulating through receptors in brain

If imbalance, effects cog.



Alc creates imbalance and lasts even if they aren’t drunk (days after)

 Ethanol kills good bacteria(microbiota) and bad 

Imbalances are ass with cog issues mood changes and continued drinking behavior

Inability to stop a habit 



Barrier and when someone drinks chronically, microbiota will leak into gut



Causes intestinal inflammation 

Inflammatory molecules released (cytokines) 



Studies show that transplanting fecal matter from alc mice to nonalc mice transfers the behavioral phenotype of chronic alc use disorder to the recipients 



  • Similar depression

  • Anxiety

  • Alcolo seeking behavior 

Mice w/ induced immunoinflammatory response colonized



Mice separated in 2 grou[ps 



Not lot of time in central area when have aud given intentional fecal matter




Thiamine deficiency

  • Wernicke korsakoff syndrome

Wernice syndrome







Toxic molecule

Major difference



Associations between alc consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the uk biobank



Neural mechanisms

  • Research suggests that alc stimulatyes neurons in the ventral tegmental area cauising enhancement in epi

Dopaminergic system

  • Profound diseases in dopamine release in ventral