The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Weight Control

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode W looks at weight control, fat loss and the futility of dieting while drinking.

A third of men and nearly one in five women drank on a daily basis. Twenty percent of men and eight percent of women consumed more than 300 calories in alcohol per day. That's from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a study looking not at alcoholism, but a separate American pandemic, obesity. Pilsener or lager beer usually comes in at around 148 calories in 12 ounces. Drinking light beer, offers about a third fewer. Dry wine contains fewer calories than sweet: 106 calories for five ounces of dry wine and champagnes… double it for sweeter wines. If you drink a glass of wine before dinner, another glass with dinner and one for dessert, that’s more than 400 calories in addition to the meal. Liquor calories depend on the proof for whiskey, tequila, gin, rum and vodka. Eighty proof contains 97 calories per shot. One hundred proof has 124 calories. How you mix the hard liquors will add calories faster. A whiskey sour will have 122 calories and a gin and tonic has 171 calories, a pina colada, 262 calories, and a large margarita can have as many as 400 calories.

The body uses as fuel macronutrients stored from the things you eat. Macronutrients are carbohydrates, fat and protein. Pure alcohol has none of those. It's calorie dense, at seven calories per gram but has no nutrient value. The macronutrients in alcoholic beverages come from what carries the alcohol or the mixer used. These carbs do not get burned and no stored body fat is going to get burned until the body first gets rid of the toxin, alcohol.

Alcohol is the first fuel to get burned in other words. Fat burning is postponed for alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike because fat won't burn when there's alcohol in the body.
Adele. Zack Galifinakis. Megan Fox. Three celebrities who in recent months dropped weight, all three crediting a zero-alcohol diet for the pounds lost. Doesn't matter if they're alcoholic or not, and I would suppose not. They wanted to look and feel better. And who doesn't?

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

CDC: Despite binge warnings, six die a day from alcohol overdose

An overdose of the non-prescription central nervous system depressant drug, alcohol, claims 2,200 lives a year in this Jan. 6 article.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Jan. 6 Vital Signs puts it starkly: 2,200 die every year from drinking too much, too fast. Very high levels of alcohol – a central nervous system depressant drug – shut down the brain's control of critical body functions, leading to death for an average of six people every day. These are poisoning deaths, not alcoholism deaths or drinking and driving fatalities or other hazards of alcohol use.

Despite the risks, more than 38 million U.S. adults report binge drinking an average of four times per month and consume an average of eight drinks per binge. Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men on an occasion. The more you drink, the more you risk dying from it.

Many of the health risks of moderate to heavy use are apparent in the new Alcohology app for Android devices (see related article), but the CDC is using its voice to warn of immediate and often fatal consequences of alcohol use across the board. “Alcohol poisoning deaths affect people of all ages,” notes the CDC, “But they are most common among middle-aged adults and men.”

When the sedative alcohol is consumed, it works on the brain from the outside inward. This means higher functions (judgment, fine motor skills) are depressed first. Then gross motor control (coordination) and finally control of vital systems like heartbeat, breathing and body temperature control. Usually, a person will pass out before the body reaches this point under a more moderate pace of drinking that keeps pace with or slightly exceeds the body's capacity to rid itself of the drug. In binge drinking, the alcohol concentration increases so rapidly that the vital systems are depressed – or shut down.

CDC scientists analyzed deaths from alcohol poisoning among people aged 15 years and older, 2010-2012. Among key findings in the CDC report:

• Three in four alcohol poisoning deaths involve adults ages 35-64, and most deaths occur among men.
• While the majority of deaths are among non-Hispanic whites, American Indians/Alaska Natives have the most alcohol poisoning deaths per million people.
• Deaths rates from alcohol poisoning vary widely across states, from 5.3 alcohol poisoning deaths per million residents in Alabama to 46.5 deaths per million residents in Alaska.

“While this study reveals that alcohol poisoning deaths are a bigger problem than previously thought, it is still likely to be an underestimate,” admits the CDC. The organization calls on states and communities to take steps to reduce alcohol poisoning deaths by preventing binge drinking, including:

• Supporting proven programs and policies to decrease binge drinking. States with stronger alcohol policies have less binge drinking.
• Partnering with police, community groups, health departments, and doctors, nurses, and other health care providers to reduce binge drinking and related harms.
• Monitoring the role of alcohol in injuries and deaths.

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of the Dr. Alan Simberg's show, Life Changing Insights, featuring Scott Stevens.  Dr. Simberg led a discussion on the health risks and myths of health benefits of drinking.  Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature on Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud also can be found on www.alcohologist.com, plus an interview with Christoph Fisher Books.  Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international author from the UK, among his works is the Alzheimer's book "Time to Let Go." 

CDC study confirms drinking excessively doesn't mean alcoholism

Nine out of 10 adults who drink too much alcohol are not alcoholics, according to a Nov. 20 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study, released in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, confirms the distinction between managing a chronic disease like alcoholism, and counseling a person who just drinks excessively.

The CDC said excessive drinking includes binge drinking. A binge is four or more drinks on one occasion for a woman and five or more drinks on one occasion for a man, while a per-week consumption of eight or more for a woman, 15 or more for a man, is considered excessive by the CDC.

Just because an excessive drinker doesn't have the disease of alcoholism doesn't mean he or she is out of the woods. Alcohol use has been linked to increased risk of more than 60 diseases and alcohol is a known carcinogen. The higher the use, the higher the disease risk increases.

Much of what is known about the disease of alcoholism connects it to flaws in genes which control metabolism of alcohol as well as the brain's risk/reward biochemistry.

The incentive for an alcoholic to keep drinking is the physical dependence on the alcohol itself. The incentive for a non-alcoholic to keep drinking excessively is a psychological quasi-dependence on the good times and/or good feelings. The two types of drinkers require two different treatment approaches, not a one-size-fits-all program.

As noted two years ago in the 2012 alcoholism recovery book Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, “An alcohol abuser can quit but won't. An alcoholic wants to quit but can't... on his own.” The chart accompanying the article is from the book and its predecessor on treatment vs. mistreatment, What the Early Worm Gets.-- see full article.
www.alcohologist.com

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of the Bringing Inspiration To Earth show feature with Scott Stevens. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature on Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud also can be found on www.alcohologist.com, plus an interview with Scott Stevens on Health Media Now and one at Christoph Fisher Books.  Mr. Fisher is an acclaimed international author from the UK, among his works is the Alzheimer's book "Time to Let Go."  

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Decipher mixed messages about alcohol and breast cancer

Research reported June 2013 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) finds alcohol does not reduce survivability from breast cancer. The study is encouraging Breast Cancer Awareness Month news for women who prefer to drink, but the encouragement fades quickly because there remains a higher cancer risk associated with drinking.

Previous research has linked alcohol consumption to an increased risk of developing breast cancer, and the JCO study does not contradict those findings. (See the Oct. 2012 examiner article on the breast cancer/alcohol link) Alcohol consumption is believed to influence breast cancer risk through increases in estrogen production and also by altering breast tissue in developmental years. An August 28 Journal of the National Cancer Institute report showed a double-digit increase in breast cancer risk for women who drank as little as one drink daily between the first menstruation and the first pregnancy. The results were independent of drinking after first pregnancy.

"The risk increased by 11 percent for every 10 grams a day of intake, about six drinks per week," said study author Ying Liu, M.D., of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. A drink, or 10 grams of alcohol, is a 12 oz. beer, a 4 oz. glass of wine or a1.5 oz. shot of hard liquor.

Liu's team also discovered an increase in benign breast disease, a non-cancerous condition which accounts for 80 percent of breast lumps. These benign lumps do increase the risk of breast cancer by 500 percent. The more alcohol consumed between the onset of the first menstrual period and the first pregnancy, the greater the risk for both benign breast disease and breast cancer, the study reported.

The results are a warning in favor of alcohol moderation – or abstinence – during adolescence and early adulthood when the breasts are developing new tissue. "Breast tissues are particularly susceptible to environmental exposures between [the onset of menstruation] and first pregnancy because they undergo rapid cellular proliferation," Liu said. "Our results suggest that alcohol intake before the first pregnancy consistently increases the risk.” The association between drinking before first pregnancy and breast cancer appeared to be stronger for women who had a greater interval of time between the first menstrual cycle and first pregnancy, which is to say that older first-time moms carry a higher risk if they were daily drinkers. (See full article.)

The JCO study by Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center indicates that once a patient has the disease, drinking before and after her diagnosis does not impact survival from the disease. In fact, some benefit was found in women who were “moderate” drinkers due to a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a major cause of mortality among breast cancer survivors.

So alcohol can increase breast cancer risk, but may also improve outcomes once a patient has the disease.

Polly Newcomb, Ph.D.,led the study. "Our findings should be reassuring to women who already have breast cancer because their past experience consuming alcohol will not impact their survival after diagnosis."

The study began in 1988 and was conducted in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Among study participants with a history of breast cancer, the authors found that the amount and type of alcohol a woman reported consuming in the years before her diagnosis was not associated with her likelihood from dying from the cancer. However, the authors also found that those who consumed a moderate level of alcohol (three to six drinks per week) in the years before their cancer diagnosis were 15 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than non-drinkers.

The JCO report does not recommend drinking alcohol. An accompanying editorial cites many other risks of drinking alcohol, including alcohol use disorders (alcohol abuse and the disease of alcoholism), and that “alcohol intake may be associated with accidental or violent death.” A separate report Feb. 14 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrated other health risks specific to women drinkers, beyond increasing the chance for breast cancer, leading to 23,000 deaths annually.

Additionally, the American Journal of Public Health posted research from Boston University earlier this year on the connection between all cancers and alcohol consumption. (See related examiner story) That study determined that alcohol-related cancer death took away an average of 18 potential years from a person's life. Boston University's Timothy Naimi, Ph.D., said. “When it comes to cancer, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption."
--from my Oct. 1 news article (full report)
www.alcohologist.com

SATURDAY REWIND: Confusing messages about alcohol and pregnancy

There's been a lot of good science coming out of universities lately on the causes of alcohol use disorders and the health consequences of drinking. I try to report on most of it, even when it comes in direct conflict with previous research. Who's to say the old research isn't... well... old?

 

Sometimes the confusion is the result of careless reporting not the studies themselves. Take for example the breast cancer research announced April 8 (see “Report clouds alcohol, breast cancer connection”). The study concluded that moderate alcohol use doesn't make breast cancer less survivable after diagnosis. Several media outlets interpreted the findings to mean alcohol doesn't increase breast cancer, which was not the study's focus. In fact, alcohol consumption remains the only dietary factor shown to increase breast cancer risk. The new research confirmed that point, but said it didn't make the breast cancer drinkers get more fatal than non-drinker's breast cancer.

 

This week, a new study was released on alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Headlines from the study claimed “Light drinking during pregnancy may not harm baby” based on observations of children born to mothers who reported drinking one or two drinks a week during pregnancy.

 

Here are excerpts from two other studies from my archive that suggest otherwise.

Alcohol causes low birth weight even when a mother has treatment 12 months prior

A study of 1,107 first-time mothers released April 15 by Australia's University of New South Wales found an increased risk of low birth weight even if the mother was treated for an alcohol use disorder 12 months before conception. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FAS) have often been connected with drinking after conception. This is the first study connecting problems with newborns with drinking alcohol prior to conception.

 

The results of the study were outlined at the annual congress of the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand in Adelaide. The researchers found women with drug or alcohol problems, even problems that were addressed, are up to four times more likely to have a low-birth-weight baby. -- (article continues here)

 

 

Drinking during pregnancy drops the child's IQ by age eight

 

The physical deformities resulting from alcohol use during pregnancy have been well known for years, but a study released November 15 in Britain proves the drinking impairs mental performance in elementary school. Researchers found an eight point drop in Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scores among third-graders whose mothers drank during pregnancy. The point is not the eight points, it is that there was a measurable difference between kids who had mothers who drank during pregnancy versus kids whose mothers abstained.

 

The study is one of the first of its kind to track the genetic changes brought about by prenatal alcohol use. It did not include heavy drinkers, but rather focused on alcohol consumption that ordinarily would be considered “moderate.” The moderate drinking caused changes in four specific genes in the children and later resulted in the lower IQ scores.  (article continues here)



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that drinking alcohol during pregnancy can lead to FAS:  Birth defects, cognitive problems and disabilities. They are some of the most preventable birth defects and developmental disabilities. The CDC also points out that there is no amount of alcohol that is safe to drink while pregnant, and all drinks with alcohol can hurt a fetus.

Responsible parenting – and common sense – tend to side with the CDC on this one. Who wants to find out nine months later that the study or the headlines about moderate drinking being ok were wrong?

www.alcoholgist.com