Happy Halloween, Nerds! With Halloween falling on a Monday this year, my guess is that many of you did your Halloween partying some time over the past few days. Maybe you had an awesome costume that you spent months planning, or maybe you threw on a black turtleneck at the last minute and called yourself Steve Jobs (too soon?). Either way, I think there’s a high probability that you enjoyed some candy, and perhaps an alcoholic beverage or two (three, four, five…). Am I right? (Unless, of course, you fall into this group.)
If you’re in good enough shape to read this post then I’m sure you’re just fine, but…well, it’s worth a look to see what the latest research says about all that refined sugar and/or alcohol you just consumed.
1. You might not remember stuff. You would think that this is because of the alcohol, but actually, this one’s about the candy. New research in Behavioral Neuroscience shows that when people are on a high fat and refined sugar diet, they have significantly impaired hippocampal memory. This means that the people in the study had trouble forming new memories about their experiences…like what they had even eaten. Depending on how many Skittles
you’ve been popping, there’s a chance you might not recall as much as you would have if you’d opted for tricks instead of treats.
2. You might have ended up in the hospital. I don’t mean from alcohol poisoning, although that’s certainly the case for some, but I’m referring to alcohol-related injuries. A recent data analysis exercise estimates that a whopping 21% of hospitalized injuries are attributable to alcohol. A heavy drinker with alcohol in his/her system is anywhere between 4 and 7 times as likely to end up in the hospital with an injury when compared to someone who hasn’t hit the bottle. “But I’m not a heavy drinker!” you say. Turns out, moderate drinkers suffer more injuries per hour with alcohol in their systems than heavy drinkers do, and the occasional binge definitely raises hospital injury risk.
3. You might have had a fight with your significant other. A study in New Zealand found that alcohol was involved in more than 25% of altercations between intimate partners. Women were more likely to report anger, fear, and severity of aggression while feeling victimized, and the perceived severity was significantly greater if the male partner had been drinking. However, men and women claimed approximately equal rates of being the victim or the perpetrator of the aggression. You see, when alcohol’s involved in lovers’ spats, nobody wins.
4. You might have kick-started your heart disease. I hate to scare you, but a science journal called Atherosclerosis probably knows what it’s talking about. Researchers in New York took mice and divided them into three groups: group 1 had two drinks per day, seven days a week (“daily-moderate” drinkers; blood alcohol content 0.07%); group 2 had seven drinks per day, two days a week (“weekend-binge” drinkers; blood alcohol content 0.23%); group 3 had no alcohol (same number of calories, though). While good and bad cholesterol levels rose in both drinking groups, bad cholesterol went up significantly more in the binge-drinking mice. And although the researchers induced atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries of the heart) in all groups, the moderate-drinking mice actually had smaller atherosclerotic plaques than the no alcohol group; plaque volume was significantly greater in the weekend-binging mice.
Don’t kill the messenger, folks! But do be safe the next time you’re out having your candy- and alcohol-fueled party nights. Your memory/uninjured body/significant other/arteries will thank you.
Stay nerdy! And look way over to the right hand side of the site – you can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to our RSS. Everybody wins!
Francis HM, & Stevenson RJ (2011). Higher reported saturated fat and refined sugar intake is associated with reduced hippocampal-dependent memory and sensitivity to interoceptive signals. Behavioral neuroscience PMID: 22023100
Miller TR, & Spicer RS (2011). Hospital-Admitted Injury Attributable to Alcohol. Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research PMID: 22004026
Connor JL, Kypri K, Bell ML, & Cousins K (2011). Alcohol involvement in aggression between intimate partners in New Zealand: a national cross-sectional study. BMJ open, 1 (1) PMID: 22021745
Liu W, Redmond EM, Morrow D, & Cullen JP (2011). Differential effects of daily-moderate versus weekend-binge alcohol consumption on atherosclerotic plaque development in mice. Atherosclerosis PMID: 21930274
Interesting to see research that is somewhat counter to what is normally assumed about alcohol use. Here’s to moderate alcohol use (and its cardiac benefits).