Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Moderate Alcohol Use - The New Mental Anti-Aging Fad?

Prior to the late 1930’s – before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith – alcoholics were viewed as sinners with failed moral codes, and weak personalities. As time progressed, and America rebelled Prohibition, alcohol consumption became more and more popular, with increasing rates of alcohol withdrawal, liver disease, and delirium tremens. With unrestricted use of alcohol, heavy drinking was viewed as less of a personality failure, and more of a disease – alcoholism.
Even now, in social and medical settings, we fail to acknowledge that alcoholism is a psychological disease that entails heavy drinking, and mental fixation on the substance. It is known that heavy, chronic alcohol use and abuse causes neuronal defects, but what about moderate alcohol consumption? According to the talk delivered by Dr. Michael Collins, and the reading, Moderate Ethanol Preconditioning of Rat Brain Cultures Engenders Neuroprotection Against Dementia-Inducing Neuroinflammatory Proteins: Possible Signaling Mechanism (Collins et al.), low-moderate alcohol (ethanol) consumption can reduce dementia illnesses like Alzheimer’s, and can decrease the neuroinflammatory processes that are linked to brain aging.
As the title of the reading states, Dr. Collins and colleagues worked on rats. There are many differences in rats and humans, but studies like this are very insightful in terms of biological processes of the brain. We are able to better understand how our brains may work through the studying of rat brains. Conversely, since these rats are not entirely like us, they lack the sense of self.
ALCOHOLISM
The extreme pressures of society, along with the intense, sometimes conflicting, emotions humans endure is fascinating. From the article, Drinking, Depression and Their Dysfunctional Relationship by Hannah Sentenac of the Huffington Post, depression and heavy ethanol use go hand in hand. Sentenac addresses the genetic components along with comorbidity of other mental issues. From this, it is safe to say that moderate alcohol use does not always stay moderate. With the increasing stressors of life, many people are unable to sustain a physically and mentally healthy lifestyle. In turn, this can cause the dependence of alcohol, or any drug for that matter. It is accepted that everyone has their vice, but that vice can become an uncontrollable and unwanted addiction.
Strictly biologically, studies like Dr. Collins’ experiment on rats, along with others of the kind on different model organisms are great. However, when it comes to drawing real life parallels and mapping these results onto humans, it is difficult to gauge and predict the outcomes. Although these experiments may not tell us the exact consequences of human behavior, they are vital to our learning process. Studies like this are still in the early stages replication and application, therefore, improving and enhancing them to incorporate human-like factors is key.

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Image:
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1915580/images/n-ALCOHOLISM-large570.jpg 


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