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New research suggests that excessive consumption of alcohol can alter your cells and make you crave for alcohol even more.
What is the excessive consumption of alcohol done in your cells?
This is a question you may never have asked before, but new research suggests that heavy drinking may lead to lasting changes in your DNA, which may lead you to become more afraid of alcohol.
The study has just been published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Findings from researchers at Rutgers University and Yale University could lead to new, more effective ways to treat alcohol-related disorders and prevent people at risk from developing them.
"The most important thing for us when we looked at this was the persistence of gene changes after excessive alcohol consumption," senior author, Dipak K. Sarkar, PhD, director of the endocrine program of the Department of Animal Science's Rutgers University in New Brunswick, said Healthline.
Sarkar and his team evaluated blood samples taken from moderate non-smoking drinkers, occasional drinkers, occasional drinkers, and heavy drinkers who participated in a three-day "behavioral alcohol motivation experiment". .
Each participant was exposed to a different type of visual cue each day: a neutral image, an alcohol-related image, and a stress-related image.
Then, beer bottles were shown to participants, which were followed by a taste test to record each individual's motivation to drink alcohol.
During the blood test, Sarkar said it was intended to examine POMC and PER2, two genes believed to be related to alcohol behavior.
PER2 affects the body's biological clock, while POMC regulates your stress response system.
DNA methylation, a process of gene modification, caused modifications of these two genes in very greedy participants and people with heavy alcohol consumption. There was also a reduced expression of these genes in their blood samples.
"To see the bigger difference among those who have engaged in heavy drinking is rather exciting, which is surprising. It's scientifically fascinating because it gives us the impression, "Wow, that's a goal we're going to target and identify people with problems," Sarkar said of the wider implications of these findings.
"The goal would be to prevent their future consumption of alcohol. It is there that all the excitement is here. This is a major problem for millions and millions of people around the world, "he added.
If we zoom out under the microscope, we always knew that excessive consumption of alcohol was a problem.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that in the United States, one in six adults consumes excessive alcohol consumption about four times a month, consuming about seven drinks per overuse. .
Excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to many threats to your health, ranging from unintentional injuries to increased risk of badually transmitted diseases, memory problems and learning.
It also costs a lot. Excessive consumption of alcohol cost the United States $ 249 billion in 2010, with expenses such as declining workplace productivity and soaring health care bills, increasing that total, according to the CDC.
However, Angela Ting, PhD of the Cleveland Clinic's Institute of Genomic Medicine, says that this type of research is still speculative and that much remains to be done.
"An important clarification is that this study examines alcohol consumption and related behaviors with respect to" epigenetic "changes. He does not talk about genetic risks or genetic changes, "she wrote in an e-mail to Healthline.
"Although fascinating, it is a very preliminary study whose scope is extremely limited. This is consistent with other reports suggesting that alcohol consumption may alter gene expression through the activity of epigenetic mechanisms, including methylation of DNA. She wrote.
Ting adds that since the study looked at the potential changes measured in blood samples, "it's hard to extrapolate the results to help treat alcohol dependence." .
"Substance abuse is largely controlled by the processes that take place in the brain and, as the authors acknowledged in their paper, the changes they reported" do not necessarily reflect changes in the brain, " she wrote. "However, this could serve as a potential marker for monitoring progress in addiction treatment if additional studies could replicate the results."
Sarkar acknowledges that this research is still in its infancy, but says that what has been found is encouraging.
"In the future, we will investigate whether the gene methylation we have found is important or sustainable. We still need a little study, "he said.
"We would like to study if these changes can be reversed and brought back to normal. We are quite up to that goal, but if we could achieve that goal, we could really help our society in a big way. "
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