Salud?

Alcohol may fry your liver but recent studies have shown that it does not set your soul on fire. By “on fire,” I do not only mean the fiery male passions whose nerve endings are muted by alcohol resulting in involuntarily aborted love missions. I also mean “fire” that constitutes agile mental arrows as well as reflexes for other things (yes gentlemen, there are other things.). And no, this is not a piece to tell you that alcohol is evil. A molecule cannot be evil. Like anything, it is what you do with it and in the case of alcohol, in what amounts — that it can amount to something rather undesirable. But if you are one of those who insist that alcohol per se is evil, then you should at least know the formal name of the molecule so that you will recognize each other when you meet. I included a figure here shaped like the outline of any four-legged animal with a snout. That is the molecular outline of the common alcohol that is the main host in happy hours: ethyl alcohol or C2H5OH. In doses that differ among people but generally, at and beyond the legal limits set at 0.8 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood in the US and in the UK, scientists have observed that people start to relinquish some mastery of their own minds.

I am sure that we have all seen what happens to people who have embraced the molecule too much. I have two stories. In college, during Spanish finals, we were supposed to show up at the time we had drawn to have a two-way conversation with whomever drew the same time slot in front of our teacher. My luck delivered me a dear friend who also happened to consider one Earth’s full rotation as one continuous happy hour. So at 9:45 a.m., after I asked him “Como estas?” he replied ever so cheerfully, “Bien, y- kaw?” (correct retort should be “y tu?” which means “and you?”). My teacher’s sympathy for me was like lighting  — instantaneous and generous. She scheduled me for another time, and luck brought me another partner who shared my objective to pass Spanish. Another time, I also had a house guest under the same molecular spell whom I noticed was excusing himself from bumping into someone so he could pass and go to the bathroom. I had to open the bathroom door for him because that “someone” was really him as my bathroom door had a full sized mirror on the side that faced him. I do not know if the researchers of the studies that I came across lately have had similar episodes that prompted them to really peer into brains that are discoing with the ethyl alcohol molecule but I would not be surprised if they had.

The recent study from the Journal of Neuroscience (The Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0086-08.2008) by Jodi Gilman and Daniel Hommer at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Maryland has found that starting at the legal driving limits of alcohol intake, people who received such doses showed that they are not significantly affected if shown fearful faces. These “fearful faces” were supposed to signal “fear and avoidance” so that we naturally take precautionary measures but in the experiment, it seemed like they did not recognize that. This warns us that indeed, alcohol in certain amounts affects our judgments concerning risk and danger. If you do not recognize fear in others, then you do not recognize it for yourself, which may make you cross boundaries that could endanger your safety and others’. The researchers also think this explains why people say that alcohol makes them feel “outgoing and more aggressive.”

The researchers did this while looking at the brains of subjects who received alcohol in a way that some could only dream of — intravenously. They compared it with those who received placebos. Those who were dosed with alcohol had increased activity in the brain parts involved in fear: the amygdala, insula and parahippocampal. They also recorded significantly increased activity in the brain’s visual system. What is really tricky about being under the spell of alcohol is while it masks threats, it takes you dancing in the pleasure parts of your brain at the same time. Thus, the “happy hour person” is really someone who probably views a 10-foot drop as a step into a luxurious foot spa.

For those who think that inability to recognize threats is not such a bad thing, I am professionally bound to tell you that another groundbreaking study has found that those who drink heavily (two drinks or more a day) and/or smoke (one pack or more a day) increase their chances of hastening the onset of Alzheimers by about five and two years, respectively. The study has been presented to the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in Chicago but I am still trying to check if the study has already been published for review of peers. These two studies effectively tell us that if you drink heavily and you do not hurt or kill yourself because you do not recognize threats, then the loss is not yet final as you will more likely lose your “mind” earlier than those who do not drink heavily.

And as far as science is concerned, the “soul” sits in your mind. And the mind is that intangible essence whose electro-chemical basis rests in the wirings of the brain. If you have reason to suspect that your soul seems to be in your intestines or in your kidneys or bladder, or somewhere else outside yourself, I am telling you in advance that I cannot help you. I write a science column. I have zero competence in soul-finding.

I have a reader who probably waited for years for this column. Years ago, he wrote to me insisting that his brain is safe from his love of alcohol since the damage that is done by alcohol is on the liver and kidneys, among other “lower organs.” I had to remind him that he needs a working body to carry his head. For those who want to “cross boundaries,” especially themselves, without surrendering to a molecule, I suggest joining the theater. PETA seems to have found new inspiration and offering workshops to the public.

I guess the bottomline is to have that lovely drink but do not surrender to it. There are other ways, other than molecular, to set your souls on fire.

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