My second post- 4 months after the first. Woops! In my defence, m’lud, it was the summer vacation and my life was taken over by my summer job, socialising with colleagues and a bit of travel thrown in for good measure. Strangely, there is actually more time during term to think and write than there is when I’m at home. All the plans that I had for interesting baking combinations, reading and research went out of the window. Now I’m back in Oxford and five weeks into my fourth year, scary as that sounds. This year is all about a research project that I am undertaking in the department and it is brilliant fun. Free(ish) weekends also mean more time to spend in the kitchen and reading up on interesting scientific food-related things. (As mentioned previously, I’m still a little bit vague on what this is all about!) However, this time, I haven’t really done too much research. I was fortunate enough to stumble across the inspiration for this post whilst catching up on the news, and then to realise that I had something very relevant in some lecture notes from last year. Yes, that’s right- my degree is actually useful sometimes! And on what topic have I been so well educated? That would be alcohol. Oh yes. Of course, I’ve tried to teach myself a lot about it, too. Investigating one’s subject outside of lectures is most important!
Many of us enjoy a glass or few with a meal, or without a meal quite a lot of the time. There are lots of wonderful, interesting varieties of alcohol, and some not-so-nice ones. What makes it the perfect subject for a science blog is that it contains a simple organic molecule, which most people have heard of and we geeky scientists love to use as proof that what we do CAN be cool! This molecule is ethanol. Two carbons, six hydrogens and an oxygen. Sounds harmless enough, doesn’t it? But we all know the effects, whether from first-hand experience, witnessing others under the influence or those films they show us in school to try to scare us away from the stuff.
A recent article on the BBC News website, written by a social anthropologist (found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15265317), addressed the message we give out and receive about alcohol and the attitude it engenders. Kate Fox believes that the typical behaviour induced by consumption of alcohol is a result of the information we are given. In her view, we are told that alcohol makes us lairy, aggressive, incoherent and more prone to risky behaviour, so we allow ourselves to behave that way when we’ve had a drink. “I was drunk” has become an acceptable excuse for anti-social, frankly awful, behaviour. True, it’s almost expected that a night out involving alcohol will require some apologies the next day and a massive Facebook de-tagging session when your friends decide to be unkind and put the photos of you indulging in daft/disgusting/promiscuous/ all of the above activities on the internet. We’ve all been there or seen it, especially we students and I’m sorry to say that it can be amusing and doesn’t attract the censure it should.
The idea that our behaviour under the influence of alcohol is moderated by cultural expectations sounds very plausible and many aspects of Fox’s argument ring true. However, is she justified in claiming that “The effects of alcohol on behaviour are determined by cultural rules and norms, not by the chemical actions of ethanol?” Whilst she makes a very good point and I agree that we do need a cultural revolution in our attitude towards alcohol- one is always responsible for one’s actions, even under the influence, and each individual has the responsibility to know their limits and take care not to exceed them- I couldn’t help but feel that the article lacked an explanation as to how ethanol affects us in a purely biological sense. Whether we can detach this from the social factors affecting our behaviour is another point entirely; indeed a very interesting one, but some background would have been helpful in determining the validity of Fox’s argument, or making it a balanced argument.
In comes the information imparted to me in a lecture. One of our lecturers was teaching us about a reaction which occurs in the body when we consume alcohol. The ethanol in the alcoholic drinks we consume is oxidised by an enzyme in the liver called alcohol dehydrogenase (a zinc-containing enzyme for anyone who’s interested) to form acetaldehyde (ethanal). This is converted by another enzyme to ethanoic acid, but this second process is very slow and so there is a build up of acetaldehyde in the body. The acetaldehyde reacts with a neurotransmitter called epinephrine, to form a cyclic product, which causes a loss in cognitive coherence, a red face and various other classic signs of being drunk. The loss in cognitive coherence may go some way to explaining the anti-social behaviour displayed by drunk individuals, although it’s still not really an excuse!
Epinephrine and the molecule produced from its reaction with acetaldehyde.
So, there we have a little bit about the science behind inebriation. The exact effects on the brain and behaviour are quite a lot more complicated, and obviously the social implications and expectations do play an important role in how we are affected when we drink. Hopefully this has just provided a little bit more information and some satisfaction to the geeky and interested out there.
