Category: Alcoholism

Stimulant drugs, which can increase energy and concentration, are widely abused by young adults. One such drug are amphetamines, which in addition to being widely accessible, has been shown in previous studies to have a significant relationship between its abuse and the amount of alcohol consumed.

The results will be published in the March 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

Craig R. Rush, senior author of the study and Professor of Behavioral Science, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Kentucky, said that there is a direct epidemiological link between drinking alcohol and the misuse of prescription drugs. Rush and his fellow researchers wanted to build upon previous research that showed that moderate drinkers were more sensitive to some of the effects of amphetamines when compared to light drinkers.

"The idea behind the present study was to follow that study up with one in which we determined whether moderate drinkers were also more likely to work to receive amphetamine in the laboratory, in addition to being more sensitive to its subjective effects," said Rush.

The researchers assessed 33 individuals, and divided them into either moderate or light drinkers, based on if they drank more or less than seven drinks per week, respectively. During the course of four studies, the participants were given the placebo, as well as both low (8-10mg) and high (16-20mg) doses of d-amphetamine. Following these initial sessions, the subjects then had the chance to earn up to a total of eight capsules containing 12.5 per cent of the previous dose by working on a computer task.

The results showed that the high dose of amphetamines increased drug taking in both light and moderate drinkers, while only the low dose did so with the moderate drinkers. The moderate drinkers were found to engage in the computer tasks in order to receive the high dose of amphetamine. This indicates that consuming moderate levels of alcohol may increase an individual's vulnerability to the effects of stimulants like amphetamine. But, further research is needed to fully explain the behavioral and neuropharmacological mechanisms involved between alcohol consumption and stimulant abuse.

However, one possible explanation the researchers discussed was that the moderate drinking group might have been sensitized to the reinforcing effects of the amphetamines because of increased drug use.

"Sensitization effects to stimulants can be powerful, most notably with regard to their persistence," said Mark T. Fillmore, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky. "We need to determine if drinking heavily might actually produce physiological changes in individuals that causes them to become more sensitive to the pleasurable effects of psychostimulant drugs, such as amphetamines."

Rush agrees, but says that there are many different paths of research that can branch off of this.

"Other future directions could be to look at the influence of alcohol use history on the effects of other drugs of abuse or to determine how acute alcohol administration, as opposed to self-reported drinking history, impacts response to stimulants."

Although presidents at some U.S. colleges have argued that lowering the minimum legal drinking age could help curb binge drinking on campuses, a new study in the January issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs suggests such a measure would be ineffective.

In 2008, a group of college presidents and chancellors formed the Amethyst Initiative, a call to rethink the current minimum legal drinking age of 21. They argue that the law encourages underage college students to drink at parties, where binge drinking is common. The main argument states that if students as young as 18 could legally drink in bars and restaurants, they might instead learn more-moderate drinking habits, which could then lead to less binge drinking on college campuses.

So far, 135 college presidents have signed the Initiative's public statement urging lawmakers to reconsider the legal drinking age.

But to simply lower the drinking age without an understanding of its effects would constitute a "radical experiment," said Richard A. Scribner, M.D., M.P.H., of the Louisiana State University School of Public Health, one of the researchers on the new study.

So Scribner and colleagues at BioMedware Corporation in Ann Arbor, MI, and other institutions used a mathematical model to estimate the effects that a lower drinking age would have on college binge drinking.

The model, developed based on survey data from students at 32 U.S. colleges, aimed to evaluate the "misperception effect" emphasized by the Amethyst Initiative — that is, the idea that underage students widely perceive "normal" drinking levels to be higher than they actually are and that students would adjust their own habits if they were surrounded by social drinkers rather than binge-drinking party-goers.

Overall, the researchers found that the campuses that were most likely to see a decline in binge drinking from a lowered legal drinking age were those that had the poorest enforcement of underage drinking laws — being surrounded, for instance, by bars that do not check identification — and a significant level of student misperception of "normal" drinking (that is, students thinking that the average fellow student drinks much more than he or she actually does). If misperception levels were not present or were at the levels shown by the survey data, these campuses would likely see more binge-drinking if the legal age were lowered.

On "drier" campuses, the study found, student misperceptions would have to be even greater.

"The higher the level of enforcement of underage drinking laws, the higher the level of misperception would have to be for the Amethyst Initiative to have any hope of being effective," explained lead researcher Dr. Jawaid W. Rasul, of BioMedware Corporation. "The misperception effect would have to be extremely large."

And without data supporting the existence of such high levels of student misperception, Rasul said, lowering the legal drinking age would be unlikely to curb college binge drinking.

Scribner also pointed out that lowering the drinking age would not only affect college students but all currently underage young adults. And past research has suggested that when alcohol becomes more readily accessible to young people, alcohol-related problems, such as drunk driving, go up.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jawaid W. Rasul, Robert G. Rommel, Geoffrey M. Jacquez, Ben G. Fitzpatrick, Azmy S. Ackleh, Neal Simonsen, Richard A. Scribner. Heavy Episodic Drinking on College Campuses: Does Changing the Legal Drinking Age Make a Difference?Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs,, 2011; 72 (1): 15-23 [link]

Researchers have known for years that teens are less sensitive than adults to the motor-impairing effects of alcohol, but they do not know exactly what is happening in the brain that causes teens to be less sensitive than adults. But now, neuropsychologists at Baylor University have found the particular cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the age-dependent effect of alcohol in teens that may cause the reduced motor impairment.

The study appeared on-line in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. The study is the first to identify a mechanism underlying one of the main behavioral differences between adolescents and adults in their response to alcohol.

"This study is a significant advancement in understanding why adolescents are insensitive to alcohol and provides some insights into why teens might consequently consume alcohol to dangerous levels," said Dr. Doug Matthews, a research scientist at Baylor who led the study. "This differential effect is not due to different blood-alcohol levels. Such reduced sensitivity in teens is troublesome considering that binge and heavy alcohol consumption increases throughout human adolescence and peaks at 21 to 25 years of age. Therefore understanding the mechanisms that underlie the reduced sensitivity to alcohol during adolescence is critical."

Specifically, the Baylor researchers found the firing rate of a particular neuron called the cerebellar Purkinje neuron was insensitive to large alcohol doses in adolescent animal models, while the firing rate of those neurons was significantly depressed in adults. The spontaneous firing rate in adults from Purkinje neurons decreased approximately 20 percent, which researchers said indicates potential motor impairment. Adolescents, on the other hand, did show a slight motor impairment, however the firing rates from adolescent Purkinje neurons did not dramatically change in response to alcohol, and in fact showed a five percent increase in firing rate.

The Baylor researchers said this alcohol-induced reduction of spontaneous Purkinje neuron firing rates in adults could explain the greater sensitivity to alcohol's motor impairing effects in adults compared to adolescents. However, there are likely to be contributions from other systems involved to cause thee different behavioral effects.

Despite the existence of effective programs for treating alcohol dependencies and disorders, less than a quarter of people who are diagnosed actually seek treatment. In a recent study by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health researchers report that people diagnosed with alcoholism at some point in their lifetime were more than 60% less likely to seek treatment if they believed they would be stigmatized once their status is known.

This is the first study to address the underuse of alcohol services specifically with regard to alcohol-related stigma. Findings are published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Based on a survey of 34,653 individuals in the general population (6,309 of whom had an alcohol use disorder) drawn from the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), researchers found that individuals with an alcohol use disorder who perceived negative stigma were 0.37 times less likely to seek treatment for their disorder compared to individuals with similarly serious alcohol disorders who did not perceive stigma.

In the general population, younger individuals perceived less stigma, and also were less likely to seek treatment for an alcohol disorder. Men perceived more stigma compared to women (38.1%vs. 37.7%). Non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanic adults overall reported a higher mean stigma compared to Whites (39 % vs. 37%) and were less likely to utilize alcohol services. However, the data also suggest that individuals with more severe alcohol disorders had a greater likelihood to seek treatment. Overall, perceived stigma was significantly higher for those with lower personal income, lower education, and individuals previously married compared to those who had never married.

"People with alcohol disorders who perceive high levels of alcohol stigma may avoid entering treatment because it confirms their membership in a stigmatized group," said Katherine Keyes, PhD, in the Mailman School of Public Health Department Epidemiology. "Given that alcohol use disorders are one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders in the United States, the empirical documentation of stigma as a barrier to treatment is an important public health finding. Greater attention to reducing the stigma of having an alcohol disorder is urgently needed so that more individuals access the effective systems of care available to treat these disabling conditions."

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Journal Reference:

1. K. M. Keyes, M. L. Hatzenbuehler, K. A. McLaughlin, B. Link, M. Olfson, B. F. Grant, D. Hasin. Stigma and Treatment for Alcohol Disorders in the United States. American Journal of Epidemiology, 2010; DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwq304

Moderate consumption of so-called energy drinks can improve people's response time on a lab test measuring behavioral control, but those benefits disappear as people drink more of the beverage, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.

With the growing popularity of energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster, Burn and RockStar, especially among high school and college students, psychologists have been studying the effects of sugary, highly caffeinated drinks on young people. College students in particular have been using these drinks to stay awake, help them study and cut the intoxicating effects of alcohol. The latter use has sent several young people to hospital emergency rooms, leading a handful of state liquor control boards recently to ban the drink Four Loko, which combined caffeine and alcohol.

"Several aspects of cognitive performance that show improvement under the influence of caffeine are attention, reaction time, visual search, psychomotor speed, memory, vigilance and verbal reasoning," said Cecile A. Marczinski, PhD, of Northern Kentucky University and co-author of the study "Acute Effects of a Glucose Energy Drink on Behavioral Control." "The results of the current study illustrate that energy drinks can increase stimulation and decrease mental fatigue, suggesting that they may be used with alcohol to counteract the sedation associated with drinking."

The study, published in the December issue of the APA journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, included 80 college students (34 men and 46 women) between the ages of 18 and 40. Some were given Red Bull 7, while others were given lower amounts of caffeine added to Squirt, a lemon-flavored decaffeinated soda that looks and tastes like Red Bull. Others were given plain Squirt as a placebo. A half-hour after finishing the drinks, participants took a computerized "go/no-go" test in which they had to respond quickly to targets on a screen. They were instructed to hit the forward slash key when a green target appeared and do nothing when a blue target appeared.

Participants were also asked how stimulated and mentally fatigued they felt after the drinks. The students who were given Red Bull reported feeling more stimulated and less tired than the other participants, but their response rates were slower.

"This finding is of interest given that energy drinks are frequently mixed with alcohol and the acute effects of alcohol impair response inhibition," Marczinski said. "Since regulation of energy drinks is lax in the United States in regard to content labeling and possible health warnings, especially mixed with alcohol, having a better understanding of the acute subjective and objective effects of these beverages is warranted."

In a second study reported in the same journal, Jennifer L. Temple, PhD, and colleagues at the University at Buffalo found boys and girls respond differently physiologically to caffeine. In this experiment, 26 boys and 26 girls between the ages of 12 and 17 drank flattened Sprite containing caffeine at three concentrations: 50 mg, 100 mg or 200 mg. Flat Sprite with no caffeine was included as a placebo. The youngsters were then tested for changes in their blood pressure and heart rate every 10 minutes for one hour. At the end of the hour, they were given a questionnaire and an opportunity to eat all they wanted of the following junk food: Skittles and Smarties (high sugar/low fat); potato chips and Doritos (low sugar/high fat); and M&Ms and Twix (high sugar/high fat).

Among boys, high caffeine consumers showed greater increases in their diastolic blood pressure (the lower number) than boys who ingested less caffeine. There was no relationship between blood pressure and caffeine consumption in girls. In addition, those participants who ingested the most caffeine ate more high-sugar snack foods in the laboratory compared to low-caffeine consumers.

Boys and girls also had different reasons for consuming caffeine, the researchers found. Boys were more likely than girls to say they consumed caffeine "to get energy," "to get a rush" and for "athletic performance."

"Adolescents are among the fastest growing consumers of caffeine and yet very few empirical studies have focused on this population," Temple said. "It is imperative that we understand the impact of caffeine use on adolescents."

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Journal References:

1. Meagan A. Howard, Cecile A. Marczinski. Acute Effects of a Glucose Energy Drink on Behavioral Control. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2010; 18 (6)
2. Jennifer L. Temple, Amber M. Dewey, Laura N. Briatico. Effects of Acute Caffeine Administration on Adolescents. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2010; 18 (6)

 Belfast's binge drinking culture could be behind the country's high rates of heart disease, according to a paper published on the British Medical Journal website.

The study, which compares drinking patterns of middle aged men in France and Belfast, finds that the volume of alcohol consumed over a week in both countries is almost identical. However, in Belfast alcohol tends to be drunk over one or two days rather than regularly throughout the week as in France.

The research also finds that the average amount of alcohol consumed in Belfast over the weekend is around 2-3 times higher than in France.

The link between alcohol consumption and heart disease and premature death has already been established says the paper. What remains unclear, argue the authors, is the role of drinking patterns and the type of alcohol consumed.

The researchers, led by Dr Jean-Bernard Ruidavets from Toulouse University, investigated whether drinking patterns in Northern Ireland and France were linked to the known disparity in heart disease between these two culturally diverse countries.

Over a ten year period, Ruidavets and colleagues assessed the alcohol consumption of 9,758 men from three centres in France (Lille, Strasbourg and Toulouse) and Belfast. The participants were free from heart disease when the research started in 1991 and were between the ages of 50 to 59.

The participants were divided into never drinkers, former drinkers, regular drinkers and binge drinkers. The 'drinkers' were asked via interviews and questionnaires about the volume of alcohol they consumed on a weekly and daily basis and also about the type of beverage. Cardiovascular risk factors, such as age, tobacco use, level of physical activity, blood pressure, and waist circumference were also taken into account.

The results show that the men who "binge" drink had nearly twice the risk of heart attack or death from heart disease compared to regular drinkers over the 10 years of follow up.

In the study, binge drinking is defined as excessive alcohol consumption (over 50g) drunk over a short period of time, for example on one day during the weekend (50g of alcohol equates to 4-5 drinks, and a drink to 125ml of wine or a half pint of beer).

The researchers write: "We found that alcohol consumption patterns differed radically in the two countries: in Belfast most men's alcohol intake was concentrated on one day of the weekend (Saturday), whereas in the three French centres studied alcohol consumption was spread more evenly throughout the entire week." They add: "the prevalence of binge drinking, which doubled the risk of ischaemic heart disease compared with regular drinking, was almost 20 times higher in Belfast than in the French centres."

Another reason for the higher risk of heart disease in Belfast, say the authors, could be that more people tend to drink beer and spirits than wine. In France, wine is the main alcoholic drink of choice and established research has concluded that drinking a moderate about of wine can protect against heart disease.

Ruidavets and colleagues conclude that the research has important public health implications, especially given that binge drinking is on the rise amongst younger people in Mediterranean countries. They say: "The alcohol industry takes every opportunity to imbue alcohol consumption with the positive image, emphasising its beneficial effects on ischaemic heart disease risk, but people also need to be informed about the health consequences of heavy drinking."

In an accompanying editorial, Annie Britton from University College London says binge drinking does not just increase the risk of heart disease but is also linked to other health problems such as cirrhosis of the liver and several kinds of cancer. It causes problems to society too.

She says public health messages aimed at middle aged men should stress that the protective effects of alcohol may not apply to them if they binge drink and they could be putting themselves at a higher risk of having a heart attack. When it comes to young people, Britton argues that they "are unlikely to take much notice of the findings about patterns of alcohol consumption and risk of heart disease, at a time when their risk of heart disease is low … they are more likely to respond to anti-binge drinking messages that focus on the risk of alcohol poisoning, injuries, assaults, and regretful risky sexual encounters."

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Journal Reference:

1. J.-B. Ruidavets, P. Ducimetiere, A. Evans, M. Montaye, B. Haas, A. Bingham, J. Yarnell, P. Amouyel, D. Arveiler, F. Kee, V. Bongard, J. Ferrieres. Patterns of alcohol consumption and ischaemic heart disease in culturally divergent countries: the Prospective Epidemiological Study of Myocardial Infarction (PRIME). BMJ, 2010; 341 (nov23 1): c6077 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.c6077

In a cross-sectional study from the 2004 and 2007 Australian National Drug Strategy Household (NDSH) surveys, respondents were questioned about their current and past drinking, the presence of formal diagnosis for specific diseases (heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cancer, anxiety, depression) and self-perceived general health status. The sample sizes for the 2004 and 2007 NDSH surveys were 24,109 and 23,356, respectively.

The authors report that respondents with a diagnosis of diabetes, hypertension, or anxiety were more likely to have reduced or stopped alcohol consumption in the past 12 months. The likelihood of having reduced or ceased alcohol consumption in the past 12 months increased as perceived general health status declined from excellent to poor (although the authors do not point out that lifetime abstainers were more likely than moderate drinkers to report less than excellent health status).

The authors conclude that the experience of ill health is associated with subsequent reduction or cessation of alcohol consumption ("sick quitters"), which is consistent with most prospective epidemiologic studies. The authors also conclude that this may at least partly underlie the observed 'J-shaped' function relating alcohol consumption to premature mortality. On the other hand, most modern epidemiologic studies are careful not to include "sick quitters" within the non-drinking category, and relate health effects of drinkers with those of lifetime abstainers. Further, prospective studies in which alcohol intake is assessed at different times (rather than having "changes" based only on recall at one point in time, as was done in this study) usually indicate that subjects who decrease their intake are more likely to subsequently develop adverse health outcomes, especially related to cardiovascular disease, than those who continue moderate drinking.

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Journal Reference:

1. Wenbin Liang, Tanya Chikritzhs. Reduction in alcohol consumption and health status. Addiction, 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.03164.x

 Many studies support the assertion that moderate drinking is beneficial when it comes to cardiovascular health, and for the first time scientists have discovered that a well-known molecule, called Notch, may be behind alcohol's protective effects. Down the road, this finding could help scientists create a new treatment for heart disease that mimics the beneficial influence of modest alcohol consumption.

"Any understanding of a socially acceptable, modifiable activity that many people engage in, like drinking, is useful as we continue to search for new ways to improve health," said Eileen M. Redmond, Ph.D., lead study author and associate professor in the Department of Surgery, Basic and Translational Research Division, at the University of Rochester Medical Center. "If we can figure out at the basic science level how alcohol is beneficial it wouldn't translate to doctors prescribing people to drink, but hopefully will lead to the development of a new therapy for the millions of people with coronary heart disease."

Population studies looking at patterns of health and illness and associated factors have shown that heart disease and cardiac-related death is 20 to 40 percent lower in light to moderate drinkers, compared to people who don't drink. Redmond notes that even if the reduction is only 20 percent, that still translates to a considerable benefit that warrants further investigation to better understand how alcohol works its protective magic.

In the study, published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, scientists found that alcohol at moderate levels of consumption — generally considered one to three drinks per day — inhibits Notch, and subsequently prevents the buildup of smooth muscle cells in blood vessels, which contributes to narrowing of the arteries and can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

In trying to uncover the molecular players involved when it comes to alcohol and improved cardiovascular health, Redmond and her team focused in on Notch because research has shown it influences the fate — growth, migration or death — of vascular smooth muscle cells. In blood vessels, the growth and movement of smooth muscle cells plays a key role in the development of atherosclerosis, the hardening and narrowing of arteries, and in restenosis, the re-narrowing of arteries after they have been treated to remove buildups of plaque: Both are risk factors for heart attack and stroke.

The team studied the effects of moderate amounts of alcohol in human coronary artery smooth muscle cells and in the carotid arteries of mice. In both scenarios, regular, limited amounts of alcohol decreased Notch, which in turn decreased the production and growth of smooth muscle cells, leaving vessels open and relatively free of blockages or build-up — a desirable state for a healthy heart.

Specifically, in human smooth muscle cells, treatment with moderate levels of alcohol significantly decreased the expression of the Notch 1 receptor and inhibited Notch signaling, leading to decreased growth of smooth muscle cells. The inhibitory effect of moderate alcohol on smooth muscle cell growth was reversed if the Notch pathway was artificially switched on in these cells.

In a mouse model of vessel remodeling, daily feeding of alcohol — equivalent to two drinks per day, adjusted for body weight — inhibited Notch in the vessel wall and markedly reduced vessel thickening, compared to the control, no alcohol group. Vessel remodeling occurs when vessels change shape and thickness in response to different injurious stimuli.

"At the molecular level, this is the first time anyone has linked the benefits of moderate drinking on cardiovascular disease with Notch," said David Morrow, Ph.D., an instructor in the Department of Surgery at the Medical Center, first author of the study and an expert on Notch. "Now that we've identified Notch as a cell signaling pathway regulated by alcohol, we're going to delve deeper into the nuts and bolts of the process to try to find out exactly how alcohol inhibits Notch in smooth muscle cells."

Researchers admit that uncovering how alcohol inhibits Notch signaling in these cells will not be an easy task. According to Redmond, "The Notch pathway is complex, and there are multiple potential regulatory points which could be affected by alcohol."

In addition to Redmond and Morrow, co-authors on the study include John P. Cullen, Ph.D., and Weimin Liu, M.D., Ph.D., also in the Department of Surgery, Research Division at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Paul A. Cahill, Ph.D., at the Vascular Health Research Center, Dublin City University, Ireland. The study was funded by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association.

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Journal Reference:

1. D. Morrow, J. P. Cullen, W. Liu, P. A. Cahill, E. M. Redmond. Alcohol Inhibits Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation via Regulation of the Notch Signaling Pathway. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, 2010; 30 (12): 2597 DOI: 10.1161/ATVBAHA.110.215681

Children with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) are extremely difficult to diagnose, as well as treat. But new research indicates that eyeblink conditioning may provide a better model for assessing and diagnosing FAS in children.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is an irreversible disorder in children that affects the learning centers of the brain and results in cognitive and behavioral impairment in the child for life. One of the most pressing problems in studying and treating this disorder is that it is difficult to diagnose. Although the more severe form of the disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), is characterized by a distinct set of facial features and growth retardation, the majority of lack these features, and there is no recognized diagnostic criteria that can be used to identify them.

However, a new study released in the Feb. 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, which is currently available at Early View, has been researching this problem and found that, by using classical conditioning methods, a consistent FASD deficit has been identified.

According to Sandra Jacobson, a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, Honorary Professor in the Departments of Human Biology, and Psychiatry at the University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences, and lead author of the paper, the research examined whether heavy prenatal alcohol exposure has an impact on both delay and trace learning in school-age children.

The study involved pairing a tone with a puff of air into the child's eye, causing him/her to blink. The goal was to determine whether heavy alcohol exposure affected the child's ability to associate the tone with the puff, causing him or herself to blink when the tone was heard. Delay conditioning involves an overlap between the tone and the puff of air, while trace conditioning involves the more difficult task of introducing a stimulus-free interval between the tone and air puff.

"Although trace conditioning is more complex," said Jacobson, "we found that the impact of prenatal alcohol exposure on both forms of conditioning was similar in magnitude, suggesting that the alcohol effect on the cerebellar neural circuits that mediate both forms of conditioning may be responsible for the deficits seen in both tasks."

The researchers tested 63 children on delay conditioning and then returned to test 32 of the same children on trace conditioning 1.5 years later in Cape Town, South Africa, where there is a high rate of heavy drinking during pregnancy by women. Of the 34 heavy exposed children in the study, six were diagnosed with FAS and 28 were classified as heavily exposed to alcohol but lacking the facial anomalies that characterize FAS; the remaining 29 control children were born to abstaining or light drinkers.

Only 33 per cent of those tested with FAS met criterion for delay conditioning, compared with 79 per cent for the control group. The more difficult trace conditioning task showed a similar result with 17 per cent of the children with FAS meeting the criteria for this form of learning, compared with 67 per cent for the control.

According to Claire Coles, a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and Pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine, the children that were diagnosed with FASD (including the heavily exposed group) showed a significantly slower ability to process information, as well as an overall inability to meet the required criteria for eyeblink conditioning. But, it was of interest that by extending the training for some of the children who did not meet the initial criteria, a response did form, albeit impaired.

"This kind of learning or conditioning is only one aspect of memory," said Coles. "The goal of mapping out all of the learning and memory deficits that are found as a result of alcohol exposure would be of major importance scientifically and could also be the basis for the design of effective interventions."

Even with the research suggesting that eyeblink conditioning can be used to better understand how drinking during pregnancy affects brain development and help to identify alcohol-affected children, further research is needed to determine the underlying mechanisms of how alcohol affects the response to conditioning and to identify other deficits associated with FASD to improve further treatments and interventions.

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Journal Reference:

1. Sandra W. Jacobson, Mark E. Stanton, Neil C. Dodge, Mariska Pienaar, Douglas S. Fuller, Christopher D. Molteno, Ernesta M. Meintjes, H. Eugene Hoyme, Luther K. Robinson, Nathaniel Khaole, Joseph L. Jacobson. Impaired Delay and Trace Eyeblink Conditioning in School-Age Children With Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01341.x

Many adolescents and college students innocently ingest large amounts of energy drinks to stay awake. But, new research shows that energy drink over-use is strongly linked with increased risks of engaging in episodes of heavy drinking and developing alcohol dependence.

A hallmark of college life is staying up late to study for an exam the following morning, and many students stay awake by consuming an energy drink. Also increasing in popularity is the practice of mixing alcohol with energy drinks. But these drinks are highly caffeinated and can lead to other problems, in addition to losing sleep. Unfortunately, the contents of energy drinks are not regulated.

New research indicates that individuals who have a high frequency of energy drink consumption (52 or more times within a year) were at a statistically significant higher risk for alcohol dependence and episodes of heavy drinking.

The results will be published in the February 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Amelia M. Arria, the lead author of the study, Director of the Center on Young Adult Health and Development at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, and a Senior Scientist at the Treatment Research Institute, said that prior research has highlighted the dangers of combining energy drinks with alcohol.

"We were able to examine if energy drink use was still associated with alcohol dependence, after controlling for risk-taking characteristics. The relationship persisted and the use of energy drinks was found to be associated with an increase in the risk of alcohol dependence."

The study utilized data from more than 1,000 students enrolled at a public university who were asked about their consumption of energy drinks and their alcohol drinking behaviors within the past 12 months. The researchers found that individuals who consumed energy drinks at a high frequency were more likely to get drunk at an earlier age, drink more per drinking session, and were more likely to develop alcohol dependence compared to both non-users of energy drinks and the low-frequency users.

The results of this study confirm and extend earlier research about the risks of energy drink consumption. A major concern is that mixing energy drinks with alcohol can lead to "wide-awake drunkenness," where caffeine masks the feeling of drunkenness but does not decrease actual alcohol-related impairment. As a result, the individual feels less drunk than they really are, which could lead them to consume even more alcohol or engage in risky activities like drunk driving.

"Caffeine does not antagonize or cancel out the impairment associated with drunkenness — it merely disguises the more obvious markers of that impairment," says Kathleen Miller, a research scientist from the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo. According to her, the next steps in this research include identifying links between energy drinks and other forms of substance abuse, as well assessing the overall prevalence of energy drink use by adolescents and young adults.

"Also needed is research that directly assesses students' reported reasons for mixing alcohol and energy drinks. Anecdotal reports suggest that part of this phenomenon may be driven by the perpetuation of myths (e.g., mixing alcohol and caffeine reduces drunkenness, prevents hangovers, or fools a breathalyzer test) that could be debunked through further education."

Arria agrees, adding that further research and regulations are needed to curb this disturbing trend.

"The fact that there is no regulation on the amount of caffeine in energy drinks or no requirements related to the labeling of contents or possible health risks is concerning."

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Journal Reference:

1. Amelia M. Arria, Kimberly M. Caldeira, Sarah J. Kasperski, Kathryn B. Vincent, Roland R. Griffiths, Kevin E. O’Grady. Energy Drink Consumption and Increased Risk for Alcohol Dependence. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2010; DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2010.01352.x