State Fairs and Stiff Beers: Why We Can't Stop Drinking

Recently, the Indiana State Fair served its first alcoholic beverage since 1946. With the popularity of local breweries and wineries on the rise in Indiana – nearly a hundred of each in the Hoosier State – a reversal of the near-70 year alcohol drought at the State Fair seemed inevitable.

The logo for the Beer and Wine Exhibit 2014 at the Indiana State Fair

Meanwhile, in Indiana and beyond, many scientists are buzzing about trying to understand exactly what alcohol does to our brain. From time to time, researchers lace a rodent’s drinking water with varying amounts of ethanol in order to observe how this impacts their zig-zagging through mazes. Despite consuming alcohol for millennia, we remain remarkably ill-informed regarding how alcohol affects the nervous system. Why do we consume alcohol? How does it affect us neurologically in the short-term, and why do we keep going back for more? The answers are complex, but we are beginning to see them without beer goggles.

Going back at least to 8,000 B.C., the pages of history are splashed with examples of alcohol usage, the reasons ranging from medicinal (analgesic and antiseptic), religious (Communion wine), aesthetic (perfumes and cosmetics), preservative (safeguarding of food), industrial (fossil fuels), financial (barter) and recreational (drinking in times of merriment and sorrow to alter one’s mood).  The mighty powers behind constructing the Pyramids of Giza rationed payments for their laborers in measures of beer. The Middle Ages and well beyond saw numerous reports of alcohol (primarily beer) being safer to drink than water - until the Germ Theory of Disease helped make two parts of hydrogen and one part oxygen safe to imbibe. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom received a daily rum ration until the 1970s, when someone of importance finally became worried that operating heavy machinery might be precarious while under the influence.

Many, then, are the uses of alcohol, and diverse are instances of its enduring consumption, inherent in legions of cultures for thousands of years. For all the other ways in which the world has changed, in some ways the consumption of alcohol seems little different today. As in ancient and medieval times, we drink to please others and we drink to please ourselves.

While the liver is the key organ that metabolizes alcohol, the majority of the effects we feel after having thrown back a few (or a few too many, depending on the occasion) are primarily neurological. It is important to understand that alcohol is more than simply a depressant. Alcohol is a complex drug that causes variable effects based on the amount ingested. It affects a variety of neurological pathways and targets different structures in the brain, resulting in a cocktail of symptoms not easily explained by a single molecular alteration. After minutes of ingestion, alcohol enters the blood stream and readily crosses the blood-brain barrier, typically a highly selective barrier between the circulating blood and brain fluid, and acts on a number of receptors both directly and indirectly. Even moderate alcohol consumption can have adverse effects on sleep patterns and temperature regulation, which is controlled by a small almond-shaped structure located just above the brainstem known as the hypothalamus. While a nightcap may help you feel drowsy, larger quantities of alcohol affect REM sleep, causing restlessness and wakefulness through the course of the night.

Those who have had too much are afflicted with cerebellar defects, such as difficulty walking and impaired motor coordination. Alcohol can also do a number on the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for judgment, cognition, planning, and social interaction. Some reports suggest that alcohol can bind up to 100 independent receptors in the brain, and the various locations of these processes in the cranium determine the specific changes in behavior. Other symptoms associated with drinking include changes in memory and emotion, slurred speech, and blackouts. Small to moderate quantities of alcohol have also been reported to decrease brain volume. 

Low and moderate alcohol users show a decrease in adjusted brain volume based on magnetic resonance imaging results in the Framingham Offspring Study cohort (Paul et al. JAMA Neurology 2008)

Alcohol also alters the release of numerous neuro-transmitters and neuropeptides, which are chemical messengers and protein-like molecules, respectively, involved in transmitting signals in the brain. For example, alcohol decreases the release of glutamate, the key excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, while increasing the amount of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter, potentially resulting in a slowdown of brain function. All these consequences seem negative, but there’s a catch:  booze increases the production of dopamine in the “reward center” of the brain. This creates a positive feedback loop, making us want more and more of this elixir.

A number of different structures in the brain are affected by the consumption of alcohol. In particular, the ‘pleasure center’ is responsible for the effects of the dopamine reward pathway and the limbic system can lead to changes in memory and emotion

Indeed, there are a number of reasons why libations are such a central part of our life. Here’s a small excerpt. First and foremost, we like it! This pleasure can be explained neurologically by the activation of the dopamine-reward pathway, socially by the fact that it is an event that often brings people together (be it in times of merriment or sorrow), and psychologically by how it is a low risk/high reward activity and relieves stress, helping one cope with emotional turmoil. 

If viewed from an evolutionary perspective, moderate alcohol consumption hardly affects fitness: Although the Porter in Shakespeare’s Macbeth says that drink “provokes the desire but takes away the performance,” science tells us that alcohol can bolster both. So spirits, unlike the painful fear of heights, seem no powerful threat to either survival or procreation. Additionally, the “drunken monkey” hypothesis put forth by Dr. Robert Dudley suggests that we drink because we associate alcohol with a nutritional reward, as our anthropoid ancestors primarily subsisted on ripe fruits that contained low levels of ethanol. Since moderate and chronic alcoholism are associated with a number of vitamin deficiencies, such as folate, vitamin B12, vitamin A, and calcium, I have difficulty believing that alcohol consumption is, in fact, an evolutionary hangover, but this argument has been made from time to time. However, as with most things in life, consuming alcohol in moderation can maximize its positive effects while minimizing the risk associated with consumption.

So as you weave your way to the Grand Hall to the Beer and Wine exhibition at the State Fair, right after having scarfed down your deep-fried Twinkie and a few shucks of corn, if you down that beer (or three, the limit imposed at the State Fair this year), it won’t be because you have to. You’ll swill that brew because you want to.

Contributed by:  Aarti Chawla

Follow Aarti on Twitter

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/

Diamond I, & Messing RO (1994). Neurologic effects of alcoholism. The Western journal of medicine, 161 (3), 279-87 PMID: 7975567

Németh Z, Kuntsche E, Urbán R, Farkas J, & Demetrovics Z (2011). Why do festival goers drink? Assessment of drinking motives using the DMQ-R SF in a recreational setting. Drug and alcohol review, 30 (1), 40-6 PMID: 21219496

Paul CA, Au R, Fredman L, Massaro JM, Seshadri S, Decarli C, & Wolf PA (2008). Association of alcohol consumption with brain volume in the Framingham study. Archives of neurology, 65 (10), 1363-7 PMID: 18852353

The Friday Five

Highlighting some of the coolest science news we’ve seen lately.

1. Ever wonder if a blood-sucking insect gets drunk after sucking an intoxicated person’s blood?

2. You can't hurry love...but scientists have calculated how many soul mates you have in the world. Find out how they did this and how many are waiting for you. Go get 'em, tiger, then play them this song!

3. First, scientists made the "nude" mouse, and now they made one that is see through! Scientists have also recently created the invisible mouse, but no one can seem to find it (ba dum dum).

4. Scientists have reported that the memory of starvation can be inherited through the passage of small RNAs to offspring...for at least three generations (in worms, at least). You're not only what you eat, but you're what your great great grandparents ate!

5. It's not all in your head...music can make you feel powerful – especially pumping up the bass! Rock on, tiger.

Bonus!

Last month we wrote about the sequencing of Ozzy Osbourne’s genome. Here is a great video explaining how the human genome is sequenced.

Science quote of the week:

“All of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking.” –Albert Einstein

Contributed by:  Bill Sullivan

Follow Bill on Twitter: @wjsullivan

Rechavi, O., Houri-Ze’evi, L., Anava, S., Goh, W., Kerk, S., Hannon, G., & Hobert, O. (2014). Starvation-Induced Transgenerational Inheritance of Small RNAs in C. elegans Cell, 158 (2), 277-287 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.06.020

Yang B, Treweek JB, Kulkarni RP, Deverman BE, Chen CK, Lubeck E, Shah S, Cai L, & Gradinaru V (2014). Single-Cell Phenotyping within Transparent Intact Tissue through Whole-Body Clearing. Cell PMID: 25088144

Hsu, D., Huang, L., Nordgren, L., Rucker, D., & Galinsky, A. (2014). The Music of Power: Perceptual and Behavioral Consequences of Powerful Music Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550614542345

Dying To Make Us Laugh

It is the height of irony that Robin Williams (left) played Dr.

Patch Adams (right) in the 1998 film of the same name.

Adams used humor to heal and promote health, while new

research is showing that humorists are susceptible to more

harm when they improve our health with laughter.

One of the five funniest people to ever live died recently. Robin Williams was at least as funny as Jonathan Winters, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, and Groucho Marx. He was 63 years old at the time of his death, and the others on my list have lived good long lives as well. Jonathan Winters was 88 when he died in 2013, Groucho Marx was 87, and Steve Martin and Bill Cosby are 68 and 77, respectively.

But a long-lived comedian is more of an exception than a rule. John Belushi, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Lenny Bruce, Patrice O’Neal, Madeline Kahn, Chris Farley, Bernie Mac, and Andy Kaufman all died in their 30’s or 40’s. This is sad to be sure, but it's even sadder when you consider that comedians hasten their own deaths while improving our health.

“Laughter is the best medicine.” The saying has been around for years – and it has merit. Laughter reduces cortisol production, which is a stress hormone that taxes our health and makes us gain weight. Laughter may improve our immune system function as well, and this fights off or prevents infection. A 2009 review showed that several studies indicated that laughter improved immune cell function (natural killer cells) and increased antibody levels (sIGA).

Laughter improves respiratory function and cardiac function because it increases respiratory rate and requires increased blood flow. These were reviewed in a very funny Christmas article in the British Medical Journal in 2013.

Laughter works on our brain too. Besides relieving stress, laughter triggers the release of endorphins that help our mood – and a good mood is a definite benefit to our health. Laughter also works on the neural pathways of resilience, so that we bounce back from disappointment better.

Gelototherapy is a pseudoscientific term for laughter therapy.

I say pseudo- because I can’t really find anyone who uses the

 term. But other health ideas have sprung up around laughter

as well. Laughter yoga (hasyayoga) is done in groups with eye

contact. It may start out as forced laughter, which is said to

have much less effect on health, but forced laughter turns

readily to spontaneous or mirthful, laughter, which lengthens

our life so we can go out to more yoga classes.

As far back as the 1970’s, journalist Norman Cousins advocated laughter therapy (gelototherapy) after he was said to have healed himself of heart disease and ankylosing spondylitis using Marx Brothers movies. He was an adjunct professor of Medical Humanities at UCLA where he did more research on the healing aspects of spontaneous laughter. But most of his results were on a case description basis – anecdotal at best.

There have been few if any studies that link laughter to extended longevity; however, a 2013 study of centenarians showed that they do tend to laugh more, as part of the PATL (positive attitude toward life). Linking laughter directly to longevity would be very difficult in the scientific sense, but the above stated health benefits can’t be hurting us, can they?

Apparently all this benefit comes at a cost to those giving us their gift. Comedians don’t just seem to die young, they are dying younger. Several studies have looked longitudinally at the health problems and obituaries of people in different professions, and that funny kids have more health problems later in life.

As part of a study of high intelligence individuals called the Terman Life Cycle Study (1922-1991), those kids rated by their parents as having a good sense of humor tended to have more health problems as adults, including alcoholism and lung disease from smoking.

People say that fat guys are funny. I’m fat and my kids say I’m

not that funny. But the question remains, do fat boys become

funny to survive, or does being funny make guys fat? Curly

Howard of the Three Stooges got fat after a bout of depression

at the end of his first marriage. He had a series of strokes late in

his movie career and died at the age of 49.

In a three-year study of police officers in Finland, those that were rated funnier or more humorous tended to be overweight, smoked more, and have more cardiovascular disease. For funny people who choose to become comedians then numbers just get worse. A 1992 study showed that comedians and humor writers died at younger ages. They tended to have more physical and mental health problems. This might relate to the environments in which they work – smoke and alcohol filled clubs, or it might reflect their tendency to see the humor and positive in things and not pay attention to risks of the unhealthy habits in which they engage.

A recent review of deaths by profession shows that performers of all sorts, including comedians, tend to die younger – health problems most certainly playing a role in their earlier demise. Robin Williams had suffered for years with substance abuse problems, bouts of severe depression, and heart disease. Comedians tend to have more depression than the general population and the suicide rate of performers, including comedians, is twice that of the general population.

But which comes first, do depressives become comedians because their altered thinking lends itself to looking at the world differently, or perhaps it is a way of self-medicating (as is drug abuse they tend to fall into) and fitting in with the world. Or, does comedy and the rejection that often comes with it, lead to more bouts of depression? Whichever it is, the physical and mental health problems of humorists seem all the more tragic when it is considered how much good these people do for us.

Contributed by Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD

As Many Exceptions As Rules

C.R. Epstein, R.J. Epstein (2013). Death in The New York Times: the price of fame is a faster flame QJM: monthly journal of the Association of Physicians, 106 (6), 517-521

Greengross G (2013). Humor and aging - a mini-review. Gerontology, 59 (5), 448-53 PMID: 23689078

Ferner RE, & Aronson JK (2013). Laughter and MIRTH (Methodical Investigation of Risibility, Therapeutic and Harmful): narrative synthesis. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 347 PMID: 24336308

Bennett MP, & Lengacher C (2009). Humor and Laughter May Influence Health IV. Humor and Immune Function. Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine : eCAM, 6 (2), 159-64 PMID: 18955287

Weather Vs. Climate In Global Warming

Sharknado - more than enough said, but I can’t resist.

Without having seen the “film,” I don’t think I can give a

good review, but I know enough to know that a flood of

sharks would do more damage than a single tornado full

of sharks. As with all falls, it’s the landing that does the

damage, so I would guess there would be a lot of shark

parts to clean up later. Do you think a sharknado is

caused by global warning?

Here in the Midwest, the fall and winter of 2013-2014 was a doozie. There were ice storms, snowstorms, sleet storms, and at least one Sharknado. My shovel and patience got quite a work out. But this was followed by a particularly mild summer, which by coincidence has included a second Sharknado. As of mid-August, we’ve only had one day where the temperatures got above 90˚F (32.2˚C).

Some people say that this is proof that global warming is a government/liberal/ commie/hippie/satanic conspiracy. I hate to burst your Oliver Stone bubble, but that’s just not so – and it doesn’t prove global warming is true either. Let’s take a short look into climate and weather and see if we can pick out a few trends.

Number one, and this is a point for the conspiracy theorists, global warming and climate change are as natural as day following night, as dogs chasing cats, or as Justin Bieber doing something socially or morally reprehensible. The Earth has gone through countless shifts in climate.

The Cambrian Explosion took place 550 million years ago, and the average global temperature at the time was 25˚C (77˚F). This was the period when the number of types of multicellular animals increased greatly over a relatively short period of time. All of our current phyla of animals were born in this era, so speciation obviously doesn’t have a problem with heat.

During the Middle Carboniferous Period 330 million years ago, the average temperature on Earth decreased from about 20˚C to 15˚C. Yet animals grew to huge sizes, like dragonflies with 6-foot wing spans, even though the temperature was dropping. By the Permian period the average global temperature was only 10˚C (50˚F).

You can see that through geologic history, there have been

many warm and cold periods in Earth’s history. We can’t

blame human technology for all of them. But that doesn’t

mean we aren’t affecting our rate of temperature rise now.

You can see that we are now near a low point, and that’s

What humans evolved to live in. The next warming trend

will be our first – can we survive it?

Ice ages have been plentiful too, with multimillion year periods where the global temperature was low. Today, the average global temperature is about 14˚C (57.2 ˚F), so we’re much closer to another Disney movie about a sloth and a mammoth than we are to a period similar to an ant under the magnifying glass.

But don’t conclude that this means we have nothing to worry about. We are in a period of global warming. Over the last 100 years, the average global temperature has risen 1.53 degrees Celsius. This may not seem like much, but it’s faster than any time in the previous 1400 years, and we don’t know how high it might go.

Number two, even if global warming and cooling are natural events, the rate at which they occur doesn’t have to be. The number of things man is doing to influence the rate of global warming is staggering (called anthropogenic warming). Burning fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide and other gases that trap the heat radiating from the earth and not letting it escape to space is just the beginning.

As humans, we breathe, and after we stop breathing - we decay. These processes release greenhouse gases as well. O.K., these are natural, but with the population explosion, there‘s a lot more breathing and decaying going on.

And more people need more food. Livestock are great producers of greenhouse gases methane and CO₂ primarily (see this post). Even growing crops contributes to global warming. The fertilizers with nitrogen contribute to production of more nitrous oxide – right – laughing gas. This escapes to the atmosphere and is one of the worst greenhouse gases - not very funny.

We need to figure out to what degree human actions altering what might be a natural increase in temperature. The vast majority of scientists agree that we are accelerating the rate at which the temperatures around the world are rising. Many studies have compared the rate at which temperature rise and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere changed during historical periods of warming and now. They are going up faster now, and there doesn’t have to be a ceiling. Score one for the climate change supporters.

This sums up the difference between climate and weather

very well. The average weather, ie. what you expect for a

certain time of year, is the climate. What actually occurs on

any given day is the weather. The old song lyric, “It don’t

rain in Indianapolis in the summertime,“ refers to climate

not weather, because I got rained on today.

This brings us to point three – changes in global temperature aren’t given as one year compared to some other year in the last century, or any single year for that matter. The changes are best understood and are reported as deviations from what is considered normal over a longer period of time.

Here is the biggest point so far – climate and weather is not the same thing. Weather is what you see is happening when you stick your head out the window. Climate is considered an average of the weather for a certain place over the last 30 years. A single hot summer or single cold winter doesn’t really make much of a difference when it's included in a 30 year average. The trends over time are what are important.

Last year’s nasty winter or this year’s mild summer aren’t refutations of global warming any more than catching one 20 foot shark means that all the fish in the ocean are huge, deadly, and good movie material. It’s just one point of data that has to be looked at with all the others.

Things we can agree on: Global warming, whether natural, man made, or a combination of the two, can result in warmer weather. The warmest ten years on record have all occurred in the last three decades (calculated as rise over the 100 year average). Also, we can agree that the warmer weather can lead to stronger storms. Typhoons and hurricanes build up over warm ocean water; the warmer the water, the stronger the storms.

What isn’t so evident is whether global warming leads to an increase in the number of tropical storms. Two fairly recent papers (here and here) make opposite predictions. One says the increase in global temperature has and will lead to more storms. The other says the trend will be toward fewer storms as the temperatures rise.

Lake Erie is the shallowest of all the Great Lakes. The

deepest spot may be 210 feet, but it averages only 62 ft deep

overall. It’s almost the smallest of the Great Lakes (4^th of 5)

but is still the 10th largest lake in the world. Because of its

shallow depth, it freezes over almost every winter. Since

the Erie Canal was built for trade, this seems to have been

quite the cog in the works.

Global warming can even lead to stronger winter storms. In 2006, the huge amount of snowfall in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York was attributed to the fact that Lake Erie didn’t freeze over – the first time this was ever recorded. Less ice cover meant more water was available to evaporate into the clouds and become lake effect snow. Therefore, one could just as easily argue that bad winters are support for the idea of global warming.

One last thing we should agree on – the Earth itself doesn’t care if it’s cold or hot. The Earth will go on, speciation will go on, with new species evolving in adaptation to new conditions and filling niches left by species that couldn’t hack it. If humans are going to adapt and survive, we’d better find a way to do it that doesn’t contribute to further warming – just turning the AC on high won’t help the situation.

Contributed by Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD
As Many Exceptions As Rules

Bender MA, Knutson TR, Tuleya RE, Sirutis JJ, Vecchi GA, Garner ST, & Held IM (2010). Modeled impact of anthropogenic warming on the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes. Science (New York, N.Y.), 327 (5964), 454-8 PMID: 20093471

Knutson, T., Sirutis, J., Garner, S., Vecchi, G., & Held, I. (2008). Simulated reduction in Atlantic hurricane frequency under twenty-first-century warming conditions Nature Geoscience, 1 (6), 359-364 DOI: 10.1038/ngeo202