Digital Scryer

The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism released this info on how excessive drinking can lead to metabolic syndrome.

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Those who drink in excess of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines (i.e., men who usually drink more than two drinks per day or women who usually drink more than one drink per day) or those who binge drink are at increased risk for the metabolic syndrome, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

The metabolic syndrome consists of a series of risk factors and conditions that are strongly related to cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. These conditions include obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

“These findings are significant because the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey shows 58 percent of all current drinkers in the United States reported usual alcohol consumption that exceeded the Dietary Guidelines, and 52 percent of all current drinkers reported at least one episode of binge drinking in the past year,” said Amy Fan, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta, Ga., and lead author of the study. “Most people who consume alcohol in the United States drink in ways that may increase their risk of the metabolic syndrome and related conditions.”

For this study, Dr. Fan and other researchers evaluated data from 1,529 participants of the 1999-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They restricted their analysis to current drinkers (participants who consumed at least 12 alcoholic drinks in 12 months) aged 20 to 84 years. The survey included both an interview and a physical examination that included a blood test. Measures of alcohol consumption included usual quantity consumed, drinking frequency, and frequency of binge drinking.

“Since more than half of current drinkers in our study drank in excess of the Dietary Guidelines limits and reported binge drinking, prevention efforts should focus on reducing alcohol consumption to safer levels,” said Dr. Fan. “Unfortunately, few physicians screen their patients about alcohol use or are knowledgeable about guidelines that define low-risk or moderate drinking.”

Dr. Fan went on to say that public health messages should emphasize the potential cardiometabolic risk associated with drinking in excess of national guidelines and binge drinking.

Other researchers working on the study include Timothy Naimi, Yan Li, Youlian Liao, Ruth Jiles, and Ali Mokdad of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, in Atlanta, Ga., and Marcia Russell of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Berkeley, Calif.

The article “Patterns of Alcohol Consumption and the Metabolic Syndrome,” will appear in the October issue of JCEM, a publication of The Endocrine Society.
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Essentially this proves the old adage that drinking gives you a beer belly. Not to mention the myriad of other bad things that come with drinking AT ALL let alone too much, so knock it off.

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Technorati Tags: Alcoholism, Diabetes, Drinking, High Blood Pressure, hypertension, Metabolic Syndrome, Obesity

Or is it? Recently TUFTS University released a study revealing the link between eating and addiction.

http://www.tufts.edu/med/news/newsitems/test%20PR.html

Dopamine regulation in relation to eating was similar in obesity prone rats to other addictive behaviors. What this means is that in certain cases of obesity, food is as addictive as heroin or crack. So it might not actually be your fault.

Dopamine regulating drugs or treatments, especially the kinds that they use in treating heroin overdose for example, could be used to help people lose weight. Genetic tweaking in this regard could also make obesity proof people, though I can’t see that happening as it’d hurt the (fast)food industry’s profits.

This conversely could be used to help the food manufacturers make more addictive additives that played on this flawed dopamine regulation… if you believe in that conspiracy-esque theory.

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Technorati Tags: Addicted, Dopamine, Food, Mice, Obesity, TUFTS

The Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis, released some more fruit fly sleep findings this week:

http://mednews.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/12092.html

These findings state that while it’s commonly known that people’s brains slow down with gradual sleep deprivation, they now know the reason and how to prevent it.

Regular fruit flies who were sleep deprived demonstrated a significant downward learning curve. Flies engineered with more dopamine receptors in their brain’s mushroom bodies (their equivalent to the human hippocampus) were able to maintain their mental performance despite a lack of sleep.

Basically their amount of dopamine seems to remain the same, they just have the ability to use it better. I’m wondering if this could have any nootropic (intelligence enhancing) side effects, other than just more mental stamina.

In the article they talk about how this could lead to methods for extended periods of wakefulness in emergency workers. The problem I see with it though, is the method by which it’s achieved. Upping your hippocampal dopamine receptors, whether through drug use or genetic engineering, would mean a major change in lifestyle. Your body clock wouldn’t be matched with the rest of the world and at the same time, I think it would create a caste system; regular sleepers vs. less sleepers. If you were a company, who would you be more likely to hire?

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Technorati Tags: Biology, Dopamine, Fruit Flies, Genetic Engineering, Genetics, Hippocampus, Learning, Memory, Nootropic, Sleep

At the Howard Hughes Medical Institute last month, researchers released these interesting findings about sleep:

http://www.hhmi.org/news/sehgal20080717.html

It seems there’s a gene responsible for sleep regulation and having it knocked out makes fruit flies sleep eighty percent less if at all. The downside? It shortens their lives by a lot. The researches have dubbed the gene SLEEPLESS and are hoping to find a similar one in humans as well as more info about how sleep regulation works in all animals.

As a sometimes insomniac, this information really hits home. It could lead to real treatments for a lack of sleep instead of just the “maybe” treatments like the over the counter aids on the market today.

It could also be used to help treat Fatal Familial Insomnia, a very rare (28 families have it world wide) and inherited prion disease that causes gradually worsening insomnia, eventually leading to dementia and death. This recent research into FFI makes me think twice about the people in my article People Who Don’t Need Sleep.

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Technorati Tags: Animals, Fatal Familial Insomnia, Fruit Flies, Gene, Genetics, HHMI, Insomnia, Insomniac, Sleep, SLEEPLESS