Friday, October 16, 2015

Drinking Away Depression

            Alcohol has the stigma in today’s society as being the root of ailment. Excessive consumption is linked with several diseases including cancer, liver failure, and diabetes, but contrary to popular belief, intake within the standards of experimental data is proven to be beneficial for the body. Various studies have shown the beneficial effects of red wine and its role in the prevention of heart disease. Doctors recommend one glass of red wine a day as a means to lower the risk of heart attack and failure.
A recent study done by Dr. Michael Collins et. al shows that there may be a link between low levels of alcohol consumption and its protective role on the brain preventing the degeneration of brain matter. Their work focused on the β-amyloid peptide prevalent in the brain of Alzheimer’s disease, which is caused by the degradation of brain matter. With the regular intake of alcohol in a process called moderate ethanol preconditioning results showed that it was beneficial in infant rats to expose the brain to certain levels of alcohol, but this is not the only potential that alcohol has as a constructive part of human diet.
In a recent study done by the medical school of Navarra showed that those who drank red wine were also less prone to suffering from depression. The pathophysiological pathways of cardiovascular disease and unipolar depression have been seen as similar, and as such, preconditioning effects mimic those seen for the brain and the Collins preconditioning model. In the results from the Navarra study, those who consumed 5-15 g/day showed a significantly less risk of developing depression. In future studies, the correlation between the chemical contribution of diet and its effect on the behavioral pathways of the body can be.

Original Study:


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765610/

No comments:

Post a Comment