Is Drinking Effecting Our Genetics?

Being humans, from time to time we indulge in the casual drink, whether it be at dinner, during a big game, or at party, but when does drinking go too far? Is it when college students are binge drinking? Is it when a pregnant woman is drinking? But isn’t a glass of red wine every night good for your heart, (I don't know the answer to that one, I heard that on the news). 

Many women when pregnant are told that if they are smokers they need to give up smoking, and if they drink they need to stop. According to the CDC and the U.S. Surgeon General, "There is no known safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant. There is also no known safe time during pregnancy or safe type of alcohol."  According to the American Academy of Pediatrics: "There is no safe amount of alcohol when a woman is pregnant. Evidence-based research has found that drinking even small amounts of alcohol while pregnant can increase the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity, or sudden infant death syndrome." It should be clear to a mother that this isn’t a risk they should be willing to take, but recently an article in the New York Times, has expressed that there are “far more U.S children than previously thought may have fetal alcohol disorders.” 

Fetal alcohol syndrome used to be thought as a singular disorder caused by a woman drinking during pregnancy, now instead of one degree of diagnosis it is being looked at on a spectrum of severity. These syndromes are known to cause cognitive deficits and other birth defects. Okay, so we understand a woman during pregnancy shouldn't be drinking any alcohol. But now what about preconception, well you would think, okay drinking prior to pregnancy, no big deal my system will filter it out. But what about binge drinking? 

Binge drinking is when one consumes alcohol to a point above the legal limit within 2 hours, and this is a drinking pattern. A study recently conducted by Asimes and colleagues, have rats that are exposed to this behavior of binge drinking and their off spring are then examined to see if this pattern has an effect on later genetics. But wait, you might be thinking, well alcohol isn't messing with my DNA how can I then pass on faulty DNA, well that may be partially right, in actuality alcohol is interfering with the epigenetics of the genome. Epigenetics literally means, on top of genetics, the code on top of DNA that can turn on and off certain genes, and of course this is affected by nature and nurture. So, binge drinking in male rats is some way effecting their offspring preconception. The connection here is that studies have shown that the, "children of alcoholics are at an increased risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and a greater propensity for abusing alcohol throughout life (Asimes et al.). We've seen it in humans and we've seen it in rats. Our drinking behavior now could affect our future children. As college students many don't have children on their mind and may engage in some continual risky behavior that could potentially alter the epigenetics of our offspring. So just don't make binge drinking a habit you may be affecting your unborn child. 

For more information on the NY times article : Far More Children Than Previously Thought Have FAS