Alcohol consumption in the United States seems to be a very hot topic of discussion, and always has been. From the prohibition in 1920 to being one of very few countries to have a drinking age of 21 years old, alcohol is a very controversial topic in the United States, especially among adolescents. We cannot deny that teenagers in the United States consume a lot of alcohol, and it is my experience that people believe this is due to the mysterious way in which we as Americans hold alcohol at. In other countries, especially in Europe, alcohol is an everyday part of their lives, and alcohol is not seen as this secret potion one can take to elicit desired effects. Because it is so normalized in Europe, people say that is why their alcoholism rates are lower than the United States, since we view alcohol as more of a way to “party” and not something to enjoy in moderation. This mysterious depiction behind alcohol draws a lot of teens in with curiosity in the United States. Unfortunately, it is also well know that brain development continues through adolescence and into adulthood, causing some to wonder the effects that alcohol might have on one’s developing brain. This question is what drew Dr. Jamie Roitman to study these effects alcohol has on adolescent developing brains, and our fears were proven true.
In “Consequences of Adolescent Ethanol Consumption on Risk Preference and Orbitofrontal Cortex Encoding of Reward,” Dr. Jamie Roitman used rats in order to see how alcohol could affect rat brain development on a more long term scale. She did this by feeding a group of rats gelatin containing alcohol throughout their adolescent years and examining the effects the alcohol would have on their orbitofrontal cortex in adulthood, which is involved in decision making related to what the outcome would be, and whether or not the rats would partake in more risky behaviors. By measuring the electrophysiological activity from neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex of both the experimental and control rats, she was able to determine whether or not there was a difference in the rats participating in more risky behaviors than the other. What she found was that the rats that had consumed more alcohol during adolescence were more likely to have risky behaviors than the control group and the alcohol consumption also had effects on their decision making related to rewards.
These findings are very relevant not only for the United States, but for all countries around the world. For some reason, we hear things like, “a glass of red wine a day is good for your health,” and people in America believe the way Europe handles alcohol is “healthy” because you are exposing it to children at a very young age, making it not such a “big deal” as it is here in America. When it comes the different cultures of drinking, it can be observed that Americans tend to be more of a binge drinking culture where we drink to get drunk, whereas in other countries around the world, it is more of a social aspect and is just with dinner or something of the sort. Regardless of how alcohol is being used around the world, for some reason there is this connotation that alcohol is somehow “better” or not as bad for your health as smoking or using other drugs, when it was found that this is simply not the case. In the article ““How Much Alcohol Is Safe to Drink? None, Say These Researchers” featured in the New York Times by Nicholas Bakalar, it states that researchers have found that no level of alcohol consumption has ever elicited any health benefits, and in fact, it is actually the 7th leading risk factor for death and disability for people between the ages of 15 and 49, yet people still do not associate it with being “unhealthy” on the level that smoking or using other drugs is held to.
This article relates to the research by Dr. Jamie Roitman in many ways but the main correlation that is seen showcases, on even and broader level, the implications of alcohol consumption. It is the 7th leading cause of death, as mentioned before, of people between the ages of 15-49. One could argue, based on Dr. Jamie Roitman work, that this could be due to the impact alcohol has on decision making and risky behaviors leading to bar fights, driving a car, and simple accidents (falling etc) due to being intoxicated, or even not while being intoxicated as Dr. Jamie Roitman found that even sober the rats participated in more risky behavior than the control group. All in all, it can be concluded that engaging in drinking alcohol is dangerous, and detrimental to our health at all ages, but especially as adolescents who are still undergoing brain development. One might further question how we will combat this moving forward in a world where alcohol is such a big part of our daily lives all around the world. The answer to this just might be that people need to decide for themselves if alcohol is worth the cost to them, or if it something they can do without.
Works Cited
Roitman, Jaime Donahey. “Consequences of Adolescent Ethanol Consumption on Risk
Preference and Orbitofrontal Cortex Encoding of Reward.”
Neuropsychopharmacology (2016) 41, pg. 1336-1375
Bakalar, Nicholas. “How Much Alcohol Is Safe to Drink? None, Say These Researchers.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 27 Aug. 2018,
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/health/alcohol-drinking-health.html.
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