The Holidays, Alcohol and Health

Alcohol and Your Metabolism

Why moderation is so important to your waistline

By Brad King

The holiday season is a time for rejoicing with friends and family. Along with the fun this season brings, comes plenty of opportunities for consuming alcoholic beverages. It's hard not to over indulge in the bounty of alcoholic options over the holidays (or any other season for that matter), but before you have a few drinks, lets take a closer look at the ways alcohol affects your metabolism and the fate of your 30 billion fat cells.

The scientific truth is, alcohol's a 'non-food,' in the sense that it is not a macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate or fat). Instead, it's a totally separate source of energy for the body. Alcohol doesn't offer nutritional value to our bodies, it instead fills us with a substantial amount of calories - 7 calories per gram.

So for you calorie counters out there who are still planning on 'having a few,' this holiday season, make sure you don't forget to add these calories into all the other ones that seem to be piling up faster than you can keep score.

Alcohol Calories:/?i>

12 oz of beer – approximately 150 calories

12 oz of lite beer – approximately 110 calories

5 oz wine – approximately 90 calories

1 ½ oz liquor (gin, rum, vodka or whiskey) – approximately 100 calories (add another 75 calories with 6 oz of pop)

1 ½ oz liqueur – approximately 160 calories

Expanding your fat cell accounts with alcohol

Consuming excess alcohol will bring your search for the elusive six-pack to an abrupt halt (pun intended)! But it does so in many more ways than just adding extra calories to your diet. In fact, only about five percent of alcohol calories ever become fat. This is due to the fact that your body will use the alcohol as energy - all the while leaving your fat where it's at!

It's true! Calories contained in alcohol are used to fuel the body before body fat is utilized. The reason for this is due to the way alcohol is metabolized. Alcohol is first broken down by the liver into a substance called acetaldehyde and then into acetate (commonly referred to as - believe it or not - vinegar). Acetate is the substance that seems to prevent fat from being oxidized (burned as energy).

To support this evidence, researchers from the University of California (Berkeley and San Francisco) embarked on a study of eight men who consumed two alcoholic drinks (each containing approximately 90 calories) within a period of 30 minutes. For several hours after consuming the alcohol, the subjects ability to utilize body fat as energy declined by a whopping 73%.

If you want to stimulate your appetite—have a drink

Alcohol enhances appetite by stimulating the liver to convert stored sugar (glycogen) into glucose (blood sugar). The excess glucose stimulates insulin production and insulin in turn stimulates the most powerful fat storage hormone around—lipoprotein lipase (LPL). It is LPL that is responsible for the often revered 'beer-belly syndrome' by directing fat to be stored in the abdominal cavity (increasing our incidence of heart disease and diabetes).

Alcohol and stress

Another way in which alcohol expands your waistline is by causing a rise in the muscle wasting stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol is the hormone that breaks down muscle tissue, causing a decline in your overall ability to burn calories - yikes! One single night of drinking can raise cortisol (and lower testosterone) for a good 24 hours.

The other side of the coin

Alcohol consumption does have some benefits. Three decades of research indicate that small to moderate amounts of alcohol can actually help to lower heart disease. Numerous studies show that nondrinkers tend to develop cardiovascular disease (CHD) more often then light to moderate drinkers. Alcohols' main mechanism of heart protection stems from the fact that it helps prevent plaque from narrowing the arteries (atherosclerosis) and cutting off the blood supply to the heart. It does this by raising levels of the good heart-protecting HDL cholesterol.

My aching head

The reason we experience the dreaded 'hangover' is due to the substance acetaldehyde. As alcohol is metabolized into acetate, some of the acetaldehyde escapes the breakdown and is released into the bloodstream. Acetaldehyde happens to be a very potent neurotoxin that causes a great deal of free radical damage - i.e. 'My head is killing me!'

Still Can't Resist

If despite the information listed, you are still interested in 'Tying one on,' the following is information that at the very least will help to protect your brain against some of the deleterious effects of acetaldehyde toxicity and in the process greatly reduce the dreaded hangover effect! This information is not intended for those who suffer from alcoholism, but only for those who choose to drink moderately.

Consume plenty of X2O water (or X2O BLAST for extra antioxidant power) before, during and after drinking alcohol. In fact, for best results, try consuming one glass of X2O water with every alcoholic beverage. http://www.xoomaworldwide.com/RandyGoss/productsAll.asp?item=8100

Take two capsules of HTN's OptiBerry - before and after drinking. http://www.xoomaworldwide.com/RandyGoss/productsAll.asp?item=1113

Take one capsule of HTN's Ellagic Acid - with each alcoholic beverage. http://www.xoomaworldwide.com/RandyGoss/productsAll.asp?item=1125

Take one 500 mg capsule of N-acetyl L-cysteine (NAC) - found at almost any health food store or pharmacy before consuming alcohol, one during and one before bed. NAC—an analogue of the dietary amino acid cysteine - helps prevent acetaldehyde from causing excess damage to the brain and body.

The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or Health Canada. Consult your health care practitioner for any medical advice. This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. ©2006 Brad King

References:

Bird, P.J.; Keeping Fit Column # 379, U. of Florida, 1994.

Lundquist F, et al. Ethanol metabolism and production of free acetate in the human liver. J Clin Invest 1962;41:955–61.

Lundquist F. Production and utilization of free acetate in man. Nature 1962;193:579–80.

Hannak D, et al. Acetate formation after short-term ethanol administration in man. Biol Chem Hoppe Seyler 1985; 366:749–53.

Siler, S.Q., et al. De novo lipogenesis, lipid kinetics, and whole-body lipid balances in humans after acute alcohol consumption.American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 70, 928-936, 1999.

Eidelman RS, et al. Alcohol consumption and coronary heart disease: a causal and protective factor. Semin Vasc Med. 2002 Aug;2(3):253-6.

Valimaki, M.J., et al. Sex hormones and adrenocortical steroids in men acutely intoxicated with ethanol. Alcohol, 1, 89-93, 1984.

Vasdev S, et al. N-acetyl cysteine attenuates ethanol induced hypertension in rats. Artery. 1995;21(6):312-6

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