Alcohol & Drug Abuse

waltky · Oct 28, 2015

Granny says, "Dat's right - just like Russia, we got a bunch o' drunks runnin' things...

CDC: Washington, D.C., Leads Nation in Per Capita Cost of Excessive Drinking
October 28, 2015 -- Washington, D.C. leads the nation with the highest per capita cost of excessive drinking, according to a new study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Researchers measured 26 cost components to estimate the total cost imposed by excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. They found that the total cost of of excessive drinking hit $1,526 per capita in D.C..--higher than any of the 50 states. The per capita cost to government of excessive drinking in Washington, D.C., was $619, or 87 cents for every drink poured in the nations capital. After the District of Columbia, Alaska ($1,165), Colorado ($1,005), New Mexico ($1,084), and Wyoming ($1,052) had the highest per capita total costs for excessive drinking. The lowest per capita costs for excessive alcohol consumption were in Utah ($592), followed by Iowa ($635), Nebraska ($639), Hawaii ($689), and Indiana ($689). The calculated costs of excessive drinking includes health care, lost productivity, and other expenses relating to criminal justice, motor vehicle crashes, fire losses, and special education associated with fetal alcohol syndrome.

The study, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, defined excessive drinking as "binge drinking," "heavy drinking," and alcohol consumption by both underage youth and pregnant mothers. Binge drinking, which accounted for 76.7 percent of the total cost of excessive drinking, is defined as having four or more drinks per occasion for women and five or more drinks per occasion for men. "Heavy drinking" consists of more than eight drinks per week for women and 15 or more drinks per week for men. Total costs incurred from excessive drinking nationwide in 2010 reached $249 billion, according to the study. Of that amount, $191.1 billion was attributed to binge drinking. $100.7 billion (40.4 percent) was incurred by government, averaging out to 83 cents per drink, the study reported.

Nearly three quarters (71.9 percent) of the total cost, or $179 billion, was due to"lost productivity." Alcohol-related health care accounted for another $28.3 billion. Despite the severe economic recession in the U.S. from late 2007 to mid-2009, the cost of excessive drinking increased about 2.7% annuallysignificantly outpacing the 1.9% annual inflation rate, researchers noted. It is clear that excessive alcohol consumption is very expensive, that these costs are largely due to binge drinking, and that a substantial proportion of these costs are borne by taxpayers, including non-drinkers."

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/sam-dorman/cdc-dc-leads-nation-capita-cost-excessive-drinking
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waltky · Mar 31, 2016

'Dancing grannies' join drugs fight...

Chinese 'dancing grannies' help out in anti-drugs fight
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 - Groups of women known for dancing in China's public squares are helping police in the fight against drugs.

The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou has some new recruits in the fight against drugs - local groups of "dancing grannies".

Known for showing off their routines to music in public spaces, the groups of mainly middle-aged and retired women - known as damas - are helping narcotics officials in the city's Jianggao area, the Guangzhou Daily newspaper reports. More than 100 damas have been recruited to the scheme since its launch in January, as part of a wider campaign to crack down on drug-related crime. They've been busy going door-to-door handing out flyers, and have also taken part in a special gala aimed at educating people about the dangers of drugs, an official tells the paper.

It's hoped the women's position in society means they'll be able to monitor drug use around them. "Most women are strongly opposed to drug abuse," says Tang Rongzhen from the local narcotics office. "That's why we are recruiting them to spread an anti-drug message."

Jianggao's narcotics team may be hoping to replicate the success of a similar scheme in the north-eastern city of Yantai, which has helped officers to bust several drugs rings. Damas are ideal for the job as they're more familiar with their local area than the police teams, officer Yuan Zhu told the news portal Jiaodong Net in November. "They can often quickly identify unusual visitors in their neighbourhood and alert the police."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-35926655
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waltky · Mar 31, 2016

Drug abuse boondoggle wastes $86M...

Obama Again Presses for More Resources to Fight US Drug Abuse
March 29, 2016 - President Barack Obama pledged again Tuesday to press for new federal funding to fight opioid abuse in the United States.

More than 28,600 Americans died in 2014 from abuse of opioids a class of drugs that includes both legal painkillers and illegal heroin according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its important to recognize that today, we are seeing more people killed because of opioid overdose than traffic accidents, Obama said at the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta. Obama in February urged Congress to approve $1.1 billion in funds to help provide opioid abuse treatment to all Americans who want it.

The president told the summit that the U.S. would continue efforts to secure international borders to block the importation of illegal drugs, but he said more needed to be done to stop illegal drug use. What we have to recognize is in this global economy of ours, the most important thing we can do is to reduce demand for drugs," he said. "And the only way that we reduce demand is if were providing treatment.

The president announced that the Department of Health and Human Services was proposing a regulation to make the anti-addiction drug buprenorphine available to more drug-addicted patients through qualified physicians. The federal government is releasing $11 million to states to expand medication-assisted treatment services. That includes the purchase and distribution of the overdose drug naltrexone.

And a federal infusion of $94 million earlier this month to hundreds of community health centers across the country potentially could treat nearly 124,000 new patients. U.S. officials hope that by putting opioid addiction and treatment front and center on the U.S. health care agenda, they can make a dent in the illegal drug problem.

http://www.voanews.com/content/obama-presses-more-resources-fight-drug-abuse/3260267.html
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$86M US Counter-Narcotics Plane Still Sitting in Storage
Mar 31, 2016 | WASHINGTON -- An $86 million Drug Enforcement Administration plane purchased seven years ago to fly surveillance and counter-narcotics missions in Afghanistan remains grounded in the US and likely will never fly in Asia, according to a scathing audit released Wednesday by the Justice Department's inspector general.

The review, which was spurred by a July 2014 whistleblower's report, found that the Global Discovery program to modify the ATR 42-500 aircraft to provide the DEA with advanced surveillance capabilities was supposed to be completed in December 2012. But it has been plagued by missteps costing the agencies $86 million, or four times the initial estimated cost. The project was part of an agreement with the Defense Department.

A Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) ATR 42-500 at the Defense Department's subcontractor's facility.

The report said it was unlikely the plane will ever fly in Afghanistan because the DEA has ceased aviation operations there. "Our findings raise serious questions as to whether the DEA was able to meet the operational needs for which its presence was requested in Afghanistan," the review said. The DEA said in a statement that it agreed it "can and should provide better oversight of its operational funding" and was reviewing its policies and procedures.

The drug agency spent $8.5 million on parts for the plane, "the majority of which cannot be used utilized on any other aircraft in its fleet," and the Defense Department built a $2 million hangar in Afghanistan for the plane that was never used and likely never will be, the report said. The plane, which has missed every scheduled delivery date, is now estimated to be completed in June nearly one year after the DEA pulled out of Afghanistan. The report said the DEA intends to fly the plane in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/...er-narcotics-plane-still-sitting-storage.html
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US spy plane cost $86m but 'never used'
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 - The US Drug Enforcement Administration spent $86m (£60m) on a spy plane to be flown in Afghanistan, but it was never used, a government report says.

The plane, to help fight the Afghan drug trade, cost a tenth of that sum and millions more went on upgrades. But to this day, it remains in storage in the US state of Delaware, a report by the Inspector General's Office of the US Justice Department says. It adds that the plane is unlikely to ever fly in Afghanistan. The programme for which the plane was bought ended in 2015. The ATR 42-500 plane was to be used in an anti-drug programme led by the DEA and the Pentagon, but costs to modify and house the aircraft quickly escalated.

Some $67.9m in funds from the US Department of Defence were spent on the plane and on a purpose-built hangar in Kabul, four times more than the original estimated cost. The report says aviation officials with the DEA "did not take into account, when purchasing the ATR 500, the time and cost it would incur to establish an infrastructure of pilots, mechanics, trainers and spare parts required to operate the aircraft". It adds that even though the plane was bought more than seven years ago, it "remains inoperable, resting on jacks, and has never actually flown in Afghanistan". A DEA official told investigators the plane, once ready, would fly in the Caribbean and Latin America, but the report notes "that was not, of course, the purpose of the funding".

Goats 'may have been eaten'

The revelations come two months after a US government watchdog accused a Pentagon agency of wasting millions on "ill-conceived" reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction John Sopko noted one programme that spent $6m to import rare blond Italian goats to help the Afghan cashmere industry. Oversight was so ineffective, Mr Spoko said, he could not be sure that the goats were not eaten. Last year, Mr Sopko said some $43m was spent on building a vehicle refuelling station in Afghanistan, 140 times the cost of an equivalent station in Pakistan. He said fraud and corruption may have increased the cost.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35931539
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waltky · May 20, 2016

A better Blood Alcohol Measuring device...

New Device Could Improve Blood Alcohol Measuring
May 19, 2016 - Using a breathalyzer or blood test to measure the amount of alcohol in the blood system may soon be a thing of the past.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism unveiled a new device that won its Wearable Alcohol Biosensor Challenge, a contest to create a device capable of measuring blood alcohol levels in near real-time. The winning device, called BACtrack Skyn, from the BACtrack company, is non-invasive and is worn on the wrist much in the same way as a fitness tracker. It uses similar technology to standard breathalyzers, but detects alcohol transdermally rather than with breath.

Breathalyzer company BACtrack won $200,000 in a contest to build a better device to measure blood alcohol levels.

Furthermore, it collects data continuously and sends the data to a smartphone via Bluetooth. The device could prove useful for those researching the effects of alcohol by avoiding having to draw blood from test subjects. Also, for those battling alcoholism, the device would allow for the discrete collection of data that is more accurate than self-reporting.

BACtrack took home a $200,000 prize for its invention. In total, the NIAA received eight submissions for the contest, and most of them were wearable and measured blood alcohol levels through the amount of alcohol in the wearers perspiration. Another submission was a temporary tattoo that changed colors depending on blood alcohol levels.

http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-...cohol-measurements-bactrack-skyn/3337387.html
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waltky · Jul 30, 2016

Alcohol can increase the risk of developing cancers...

Gene deficiency might link alcohol with cancer
Sun, Jul 31, 2016 - SLOW POISON: Medical researchers said the long-term accumulation of acetaldehyde, which is metabolized by ALDH2, can increase the risk of developing cancers

A group of medical researchers from Taiwan and the US found that about half of Taiwanese have an aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 family (mitochondrial), or ALDH2, deficiency, which might link alcohol consumption to an increased risk of developing certain types of cancer. The second Taiwan-Stanford Symposium on ALDH2 Deficiency and Human Diseases was held at Taipei Medical University yesterday, which was attended by about 100 medical researchers from Taiwan, Japan and the US.

Alexander T.H. Wu, an associate professor at the universitys doctoral program for translational medicine, told the symposium that the ALDH2 gene plays a critical role in metabolizing alcohol. When alcohol enters the body, it is first broken down by alcohol dehydrogenase, a group of enzymes, into acetaldehyde, a probable human carcinogen, and ALDH2 can convert acetaldehyde into acetic acid radicals, he said. If an individual lacks ALDH2 to metabolize acetaldehyde, the long-term accumulation of the chemical compound in the human body can increase the risk of developing certain types of cancers, Wu said.

He said consuming an average of two glasses of red wine per day can increase the risk in people with ALDH2 deficiency of developing cancer in head and neck areas, with a more than 50-fold increase in the chance of developing esophageal cancer, as well as increasing the incidence of other types of cancer. He said studies have suggested that up to 47 percent of Taiwanese lack ALDH2, which is possibly the highest rate in the world, compared with about 35 percent in China, about 30 percent in Japan and about 20 percent in South Korea.

If people with ALDH2 deficiency consume moderate amounts of alcohol, they can suffer symptoms such as severe flushing (also known as alcohol flush reaction, which is a result of acetaldehyde accumulation in the body), impaired bodily functions, headaches, nausea and heart palpitations. A study led by National Taiwan University College of Medicine director Wu Ming-hsien found that ALDH2 deficiency is also linked to increased chances of developing digestive tract cancers, suggesting that people with ALDH2 deficiency who often consume alcohol should regularly undergo an endoscopy. An international memorandum of understanding was signed between Taipei Medical University and Stanford University to develop small-molecule medicines that increase the activity of the ALDH2 gene.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/07/31/2003652167
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waltky · Aug 25, 2016

Granny says if ya does this - you's an alcoholic...

US College Students Miss Meals to Drink More Alcohol
August 24, 2016 - Popular culture often shows alcohol as a big part of the college experience in the United States.

Television programs and movies about American college life show images of wild parties with young people either drinking alcohol or holding a drink. Now, a new study of alcohol use suggests that some college students may be missing meals so they can have more drinks or get drunk faster. Researchers are calling this kind of behavior, "drunkorexia."

Drunkorexia

The study involved 1,184 college students between the ages of 18 and 26 years. Most of the students attended the University of Houston in Houston, Texas, while the others went to school in other parts of the country. Researchers asked the students about their alcohol use. They found that 80 percent of those studied had demonstrated some kind of drunkorexia in the past three months. They had performed heavy physical exercise, eaten low calorie meals or even missed meals for up to a full day before drinking alcohol.

Dipali Rinker organized the study and presented its findings to the Research Society on Alcoholism in June. Rinker, who teaches psychology at the University of Houston, says students see drunkorexia as way to keep their body weight down while drinking alcohol. And it causes them to feel the effects of alcohol quickly and with more intensity. Rinker says unhealthy eating habits are only one of the reasons this type of behavior is dangerous. Heavy drinking is linked to drunk driving operating a vehicle while drunk unprotected sex, sexual assault and alcohol poisoning. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is a U.S. governmental agency that studies alcohol related problems. It found that about 1,825 college students between 18 and 24 years old die from alcohol-related injuries every year.

Drinking culture

Nicole Mattern attends the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She says drinking is common among the students she knows at the school. It is a violation of U.S. law for anyone under the age of 21 to buy alcoholic drinks. But Mattern says many students under 21 use false documents to enter drinking establishments and buy alcohol.

Mattern says she and her friends only drink alcohol in their free time after their schoolwork is done. But she believes that drinking is an undeniable part of life on a U.S. college campus. "Young people have normalized the drinking culture," she said. "Some people have been drinking since they were 16 and theyre not just going to stop because theyre in a different environment." The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism looked at how often college students used alcohol in 2014. It found that almost 60 percent of college students between 18 and 22 years old had at least one drink in the month before being asked about their drinking habits.

Sense of invincibility
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waltky · Oct 24, 2016

Uncle Ferd always takes a flask with him when he goes out onna date...

Women 'nearing equality with men - in alcohol consumption'
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 - Women have caught up with men, at least when it comes to knocking back alcohol - a global study of drinking habits shows.

The analysis of 4 million people, born between 1891 and 2001, showed that men used to be far more likely to drink and have resulting health problems. But the current generation have pretty much closed the gap, the BMJ Open report says. The changing roles of men and women in society partly explain the move towards boozing parity.

The study showed that in people born in the early 1900s, men were:

* More than twice as likely as women to drink alcohol at all (2.2 times)
* Three times as likely to drink to problematic levels
* And 3.6 times as likely to develop health problems from drinking, such as liver cirrhosis

But over the ensuing decades, the gap closed so that for those born at the end of the century men were only:

* A smidge - 1.1 times - as likely as women to drink alcohol at all
* A much lower 1.2 times as likely to drink to problematic levels
* And 1.3 times as likely to develop health problems from drinking

The team at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, analysed data from people all over the world - although it was massively skewed towards North America and Europe. They concluded: "Alcohol use and alcohol-use disorders have historically been viewed as a male phenomenon. "The present study calls this assumption into question and suggests that young women, in particular, should be the target of concerted efforts to reduce the impact of substance use and related harms."

Prof Mark Petticrew, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "Men's and women's roles have been changing over the decades, this is likely to account for some of these trends - but not all. "The increasing availability of alcohol also plays an important part, as does the way that alcohol marketing is often targeted specifically at women and particularly young women. "Health professionals need to help the public - both men and women - to understand the health risks of alcohol consumption, and how to reduce those risks."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37751132
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waltky · Nov 3, 2016

Opioid Addiction in US Afflicts All Ages...

Opioid Epidemic in US Also Hitting Children, Teens
November 01, 2016 - Children and teens are not immune to the opioid epidemic sweeping the United States. A new study from the Yale University School of Medicine reveals opioid poisoning among children has doubled in recent years.

The study, which was published in JAMA Pediatrics, examined hospital discharge records during a 16-year period from 1997 to 2012. They found the biggest surge in poisonings was seen among toddlers ages one to four, with rates rising twofold. Teens aged 15 to 19 were the most hospitalized among the ages studied.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Julie Gaither said in light of the findings, adults should be careful to prevent their kids from accessing the pills. "Opioids are ubiquitous now," said Julie Gaither, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Public Health and the study's lead author in an interview with NPR. "Enough opioids are prescribed every year to put a bottle of painkillers in every household. They're everywhere, and kids are getting into them."

She added that opioids are found in 289 million American homes. "They're either finding medications on the floor, countertop [or] in their mother's purse," Gaither told Fox News. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioid overdoses killed more than 28,000 people in the United States in 2014. About half of them involved prescription opioids.

http://www.voanews.com/a/mht-opioid-epidemic-also-hitting-children-teens/3574612.html
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waltky · Dec 14, 2016

Granny says, "Dat's right - today's kids are so smart...

Drug, Alcohol Use Falls Among US Teens
December 13, 2016 - American teenagers are using fewer forbidden drugs and less alcohol, according to a newly released survey.

The results of the survey show a continued long-term decline in the use of many illicit substances, including marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco, and misuse of some prescription medications, among the nations teens, according to a news release. The 2016 Monitoring the Future annual survey is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, and surveys students in eighth, 10th and 12th graders. For eighth graders, the survey found they have the lowest use of illicit drugs in survey history. With the exception of marijuana, drug use was down for all ages in the survey. For eighth graders, the survey found that marijuana use dropped significantly in 2016 with 5.4 percent having used it in the past month compared to 6.5 percent in 2015. Daily use was down from 1.1 percent to 0.7 percent.

For 12th graders, 22.5 percent reported monthly marijuana use and six percent reported daily use. Those numbers were similar in 2015. Marijuana use among 10th graders also remained stable, the survey found. "Clearly our public health prevention efforts, as well as policy changes to reduce availability, are working to reduce teen drug use, especially among eighth graders," said Nora Volkow, director of NIDA. "However, when six percent of high school seniors are using marijuana daily, and new synthetics are continually flooding the illegal marketplace, we cannot be complacent. We also need to learn more about how teens interact with each other in this social media era, and how those behaviors affect substance use rates."

Marijuana plants for sale are displayed at the medical marijuana farmers market at the California Heritage Market in Los Angeles

With marijuana increasingly legal in the U.S. for both medical and recreational use, the survey found that 38.3 percent of 12th graders in states with medical marijuana laws reported using marijuana in the past year. That was five percent higher than in states with no legal medical marijuana. Cigarette use saw a large drop in all three grades, furthering a long-term decline. In 1991, 10.7 percent of high schoolers said they smoked a half-pack of cigarettes a day or more. That number is 1.8 percent in the 2016 survey. Researchers point to anti-smoking campaigns as well as policy changes for the drop. Alcohol use among teens also dropped, the survey found. But 37.3 percent of 12th graders reported being drunk over the past year. That was down from 53.2 percent in 2001.

Despite the ongoing opioid crisis afflicting millions of Americans, teen use of prescription opioids is declining. For 12th graders, there was a 45 percent drop in the number of users from five years ago, with 2.9 percent of seniors saying theyd used Vicodin over the last year, down from 10 percent 10 years ago. "It is encouraging to see more young people making healthy choices not to use illicit substances," said National Drug Control Policy Director Michael Botticelli. "We must continue to do all we can to support young people through evidence-based prevention efforts as well as treatment for those who may develop substance use disorders. And now that Congress has acted on the president's request to provide $1 billion in new funding for prevention and treatment, we will have significant new resources to do this."

http://www.voanews.com/a/mht-drug-alcohol-use-falls-among-us-teens/3634646.html
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waltky · Dec 21, 2016

Granny says, "Dat's right lil' ladies - don't let yerself get fat so's ya won't end up a drunk...

Body image problems in teen girls tied to alcohol use
December 21, 2016 - High school girls who have issues with body image and weight are more likely to be drinkers than ) their peers, a recent U.S. study suggests.

Researchers focused on body image behavioral misperceptions (BIBM) when girls try to gain or lose weight to change how they look even though theres no medical need for them to alter their weight. In the study of more than 6,500 teen girls, 38 percent had these misperceptions and roughly two-thirds had tried alcohol at least once.

When teen girls had body image issues that drove them to try to change their weight, they were 29 percent more likely to have tried alcohol and 22 percent more likely to be heavy drinkers than young women without these body image problems, the study found. We know that using alcohol as an adolescent is associated with an increased risk for experiencing multiple problems, including school problems, social problems, legal problems, hangovers, illness, risky sexual behavior, disrupted growth and development, physical and sexual assault, alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents, unintentional injury, memory problems, drug misuse, and death, said lead study author Anna Schlissel of the University of Chicago. We also know that heavy episodic drinking is associated with even higher risks of health and social problems, and that the younger people start drinking alcohol, the greater their risk for developing substance use disorders later in life, Schlissel added by email.

Drinking can also make body image problems or eating disorders worse, Schlissel said. To explore the connection between alcohol and body image behavioral misperceptions, researchers examined survey responses collected in 2013 from female high school students, most of whom were 14 to 18 years old. Overall, 18 percent reported episodes of heavy drinking during the previous month, when they consumed at least five drinks in rapid succession, researchers report in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, online December 12. Older students were more likely to report alcohol use than teens still in ninth grade, and Hispanic girls were more likely to drink than white girls. Teens who reported smoking in the past month were also more likely to drink, as were girls who became sexually active before age 13.

Students in twelfth grade and teens with a history of depression or smoking were more likely than younger girls or non-smokers to report heavy drinking. Among the teens with body image issues, black girls were less likely to have heavy drinking problems than teens in other racial and ethnic groups. One limitation of the study is that the survey depends on teens to accurately recall their drinking habits and body image issues, the authors note. Its also impossible to tell which started first: the drinking or the body image issues. The study also doesnt prove that either problem is a cause or effect of the other.

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HereWeGoAgain · Dec 22, 2016

Teen marijuana use fell sharply in Colorado in the years 2014 and 2015, after the opening of that state's recreational marijuana market, new federal survey data show.

The state-level data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that 18.35 percent of Coloradans ages 12 to 17 had used marijuana in the past year in 2014 or 2015, down sharply from 20.81 percent in 2013/2014. (In this survey, years are paired for state-level data to provide larger sample sizes). That works out to roughly a 12 percent drop in marijuana use, year-over-year.

Year-over-year teen marijuana use fell in most states during that time period, including in Washington, the other state to open recreational marijuana markets in 2014. But that drop wasn't statistically significant.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-far-failed-to-happen/?utm_term=.691eaf98b487

waltky · Jan 10, 2017

Granny says is why so many alcoholics are overweight...

Alcohol flips brain into hungry mode
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 - Alcohol switches the brain into starvation mode, ramping up appetite and hunger, scientists discover.

In tests on mice, alcohol activated the brain signals that tell the body to eat more food. The UK researchers, who report their findings in the journal Nature Communications, believe the same is probably true in humans. It would explain why many people say they eat more when they have had a few drinks. Rather than loss of restraint, it is a neuronal response, the Francis Crick Institute team says.

Aperitif

The mice were given generous doses of alcohol for three days - a dose being equivalent to around 18 units or a bottle-and-a-half of wine for a person. The alcohol caused increased activity in neurons called AGRP. These are the neurons that are fired when the body experiences starvation. The mice ate more than normal too. When the researchers repeated the experiment but blocked the neurons with a drug, the mice did not eat as much which, the researchers say, suggests that AGRP neurons are responsible for the alcohol-induced eating.

Alcohol itself contains lots of calories. A large glass of wine, for example, can contain as many as a doughnut. The study authors, Denis Burdakov and colleagues, say understanding how alcohol changes the body and our behaviour could help with managing obesity. Around two-thirds of adults in the UK are overweight or obese.

Prof Sir Ian Gilmore, from Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said people should be made aware of the impact alcohol can have on how much they eat and what they eat, along with the associated health risks. "Alcohol is responsible for over 60 illnesses and conditions on its own, and drinkers place themselves at even greater risk when their drinking is combined with over-eating: especially because when people drink they are more likely to make less healthy food choices. "Alcohol and obesity cause 90% of liver deaths and alcohol is twice as toxic to the liver in very obese patients."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38562048
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