Recreational Drinking Research Articles

The history of Gin and Tonic; the infectious disease specialist long drink. When gin and tonic was not ordered but prescribed.

The spectacular voyage of Gin and Tonic teaches us that a popular recreational drink of our Century was a powerful prophylaxis which certainly helped British colonial expansion.

Lipid profile in chronic alcoholics

Background: Alcohol is the most common and cheapest recreational drink in the world. It is both a chemical and psychoactive drugs. Aim and Objective: The aim of the study is to determine the lipid profile in chronic alcoholics. Materials and Methods: The study group comprised chronic alcoholics among families, relatives, friends neighborhood workplace, and those attending health clinics. The subjects were 40 alcoholics within the age group of 30–50 years with lean body, normal blood pressure, no history of surgery, tuberculosis, diabetes mellitus, obesity, drug intake (steroids or immunosuppressive drugs), debility, and disability. The daily consumption of alcohol was about 50–100 g/day for 3–4 days a week, amounting to 50% of total calorie consumption. The questionnaire was used to detect alcoholism. Results: The results showed rise in triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and high-density lipoprotein. Conclusion: The study shows the effect of alcohol to cause gross dyslipidemia and its toxic effects in the tissues. The therapeutic recommendation of alcohol for healthy heart is not recommended as overall dyslipidemia offsets it.

Kavain Interference with Amphetamine Immunoassay.

We encountered unexpected false positive urine results in three patients for amphetamine-type substances by immunoassay, measured as part of community drug prevention programmes. Kavain was identified in all three urine samples by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). No other potential cross-reactants were found.Kavain is a kava-lactone present in kava, a ceremonial and recreational drink derived from roots and stem of the plant Piper Methysticum. It is consumed regularly by many indigenous Pacific and Australian Aboriginal communities. Urine immunoassay was performed on a Beckman Coulter AU480 Analyser using CEDIA amphetamine-type substances reagent and DRI ethanol reagent. Three different kava powders were purchased from local kava clubs and dissolved in ethanol, then evaporated and reconstituted in blank urine and analysed by immunoassay, GC-MS for amphetamine-type substances. Additionally authentic kavain standard was also tested for cross reactivity by immunoassay and analysed by GC-MS to compare the mass fragmentation pattern and retention time with the kava powder and patient specimens. The patient urine samples tested positive by CEDIA immunoassay for amphetamines. However, when analysed by GCMS they were negative for amphetamine-type but contained kavain.The kava powders and kavain standard all cross reacted with the amphetamine immunoassay to give falsely detected results. GCMS did not identify any amphetamine-type compounds in any of the Kava powders nor in the kavain standard. To our knowledge, this is the first report of false positive amphetamine measurements due to kavain, a component of the kava drink, widely consumed in Oceania and Australasia.

Kava as a Clinical Nutrient: Promises and Challenges.

Kava beverages are typically prepared from the root of Piper methysticum. They have been consumed among Pacific Islanders for centuries. Kava extract preparations were once used as herbal drugs to treat anxiety in Europe. Kava is also marketed as a dietary supplement in the U.S. and is gaining popularity as a recreational drink in Western countries. Recent studies suggest that kava and its key phytochemicals have anti-inflammatory and anticancer effects, in addition to the well-documented neurological benefits. While its beneficial effects are widely recognized, rare hepatotoxicity had been associated with use of certain kava preparations, but there are no validations nor consistent mechanisms. Major challenges lie in the diversity of kava products and the lack of standardization, which has produced an unmet need for quality initiatives. This review aims to provide the scientific community and consumers, as well as regulatory agencies, with a broad overview on kava use and its related research. We first provide a historical background for its different uses and then discuss the current state of the research, including its chemical composition, possible mechanisms of action, and its therapeutic potential in treating inflammatory and neurological conditions, as well as cancer. We then discuss the challenges associated with kava use and research, focusing on the need for the detailed characterization of kava components and associated risks such as its reported hepatotoxicity. Lastly, given its growing popularity in clinical and recreational use, we emphasize the urgent need for quality control and quality assurance of kava products, pharmacokinetics, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and foundational pharmacology. These are essential in order to inform research into the molecular targets, cellular mechanisms, and creative use of early stage human clinical trials for designer kava modalities to inform and guide the design and execution of future randomized placebo controlled trials to maximize kava’s clinical efficacy and to minimize its risks.

Mediating alcohol use in Eastern Nigeria: a qualitative study exploring the role of popular media in young people's recreational drinking.

Nigeria has high levels of alcohol consumption, and little or no regulation of the alcohol industry. There is a dearth of studies exploring young adults’ drinking in a Nigerian context with only a few predominantly quantitative surveys. These do not explore the social meanings attached to drinking practices nor do they shed light on potential gender differences and how these are mediated by popular media. This qualitative study addresses this gap with semi-structured interviews involving 31 undergraduate students. It identifies that media consumption shapes drinking behaviour in ways which are highly patterned and gendered. Participants with high consumption of both Hollywood films and popular American reality television series associate heavy alcohol consumption with high social status, economic independence and gender equality. By contrast, Nollywood (local) films which are intended to act as moral tales and warn of the dangers of drinking appear paradoxically to support participants’ views of alcohol as positive (alleviating anxiety, depression and menstrual discomfort). Nigeria currently has no serious regulation of alcohol on television which is embedded in everyday life. Attempts to develop wider public health campaigns and policies should take this saturated media landscape into account to develop harm reduction strategies which are linked directly to media literacy programmes.

Abstract 9845: Alcohol Consumption and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Background: Since the discovery of fermented beverage, alcohol has been the most widely used recreational drink for mankind. However, impact of alcohol consumption on CVD remains unclear. Methods: We conducted prospective nationwide cohort study (Korean national health insurance service cohort), including 18,080,391 Korean adults (age ≥19), to provide new evidence on the effect of alcohol consumption on CVD. Nationwide biennial health check-up results and national health information/surveillance system data were gathered during study period. Cox proportional hazard models were used to study the association between weekly alcohol consumption dose [none (reference), 60-119g, 120-179g, 180-239g, 240-419g, and ≥420g] and CVD events after adjusting for age, gender, body mass index (kg/m2), hypertension, diabetes, hemoglobin level (g/dl), total cholesterol level (mg/dl), smoking status, physical activity, and diet style. Results: The mean age of the subjects was 43.9±14.6 years, 53.9% were men, and 49.1% were alcohol drinkers. During mean follow-up period of 5.0 years, CVD developed in 211,202 subjects (coronary heart disease, 35,060; ischemic stroke, 137,426; intracerebral hemorrhage, 24,429; subarachnoid hemorrhage, 14,287). In multivariable adjusted analysis, protective effect of alcohol consumption was observed in all doses for coronary heart disease (maximum in ≥420g category, HR 0.47, 95% CI 0.43-0.51) and ischemic stroke (maximum in 120~179g category, HR 0.79, 95% CI 0.76-0.83). Harmful effect of alcohol consumption was observed in all doses for intracerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage, with significant linear trend. Alcohol consumption reduced risk of total CVD events in all doses (maximum in 120~179g category, HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.79-0.84). Conclusions: Alcohol consumption is associated with reduced risk of overall CVD events, despite of deleterious association with hemorrhagic stroke.

Atmospheric particulate organic matter at urban and forest sites of Northern Algeria

Monitoring campaigns were made during summer 2006 in urban and forest areas of Northern Algeria. Airborne particulates were collected daily by using medium-volume aspirating systems equipped with PM10 inertial impactors. The organic fraction was extracted with soxhlet, fractioned and cleaned-up through chromatography column on alumina, then processed by gas chromatography combined with flame ionization and mass spectrometry detectors. Chemical analyses allowed to characterize a set of groups of compounds, namely n-alkanes, n-alkanoic acids, dicarboxylic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (NPAHs), and highly-polar chemicals including caffeine, nicotine and oxygenated-PAHs. Besides that, the potential sources of pollution were investigated by analyzing the n-alkane carbon preference index (CPI) and selected diagnostic ratios among PAH and NPAH concentrations. Total concentrations of n-alkanes varied from 48 to 100ngm−3 over the entire period, those of PAHs from 1.9 to 3.5ngm−3. Despite their recognized semi-volatile properties both caffeine and nicotine, identified respectively as tracers of recreational drink and tobacco smoke, reached high concentrations in the air along all period investigated. In particular, they accounted together for ∼12% of all identified PM components in the Rouiba urban area.

Case Management Reduces Drinking During Pregnancy among High Risk Women.

Estimate the efficacy of Case Management (CM) for women at high risk for bearing a child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Women were recruited from antenatal clinics and engaged in 18 months of CM. A South African community with a subculture of heavy, regular, weekend, recreational drinking and high documented rates of FASD. Forty-one women who were high risk for bearing a child with FASD. Statistical analysis of trends in drinking and other risk factors. At intake 87.8% were pregnant, most had previous alcohol-exposed pregnancies, most/all of their friends drink alcohol (67.5%), and 50.0% had stressful lives. CM was particularly valuable for pregnant women, as statistically significant reductions in alcohol risk were obtained for them in multiple variables: total drinks on weekends after six months of CM (p = .026) and estimated peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at six (p < .001) and 18 months (p < .001). For participants completing 18 months of CM, AUDIT scores improved significantly by 6-month follow-up (from 19.8 to 9.7, p = .000), and even though rising at 12 and 18 months, AUDIT scores indicate that problematic drinking remained statistically significantly lower than baseline throughout CM. Happiness scale scores correlated significantly with reduced drinking in most time periods. An enduring change in drinking behavior is difficult in this social setting. Yet, CM provided by skilled and empathic case managers reduced maternal drinking at critical times, and therefore, alcohol exposure levels to the fetus.

The Use and Abuse of Chocolate in 17th Century Medical Theory

Cacao and chocolate were first introduced to Europe both as food and medicine. However, physicians had difficulty classifying them within the dominant system of humoral physiology and their arguments eventually undermined the authority of this system, especially as new scientific methods of analysis gained popularity. Authors in the late 16th and early 17th centuries attempted to restrict the use of chocolate to specific pathological states, but later, particularly in Northern Europe, and in competition with other purveyors, the therapeutic applications of chocolate were extended so broadly as to ultimately make any real medical use seem obsolete. This aided the transformation of chocolate from a medicinal food to a purely recreational drink in subsequent centuries. The case of chocolate provides an excellent example of how products once considered medicinal gain popular appeal with the aid of medical controversy.

Love on the rocks: men, women, and alcohol in post-World War II America

Assessing America's cocktail culture; In this fascinating history of alcohol in postwar American culture, Lori Rotskoff draws on short stories, advertisements, medical writings, and Hollywood films to investigate how gender norms and ideologies of marriage intersected with scientific and popular ideas about drinking and alcoholism. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, recreational drinking became increasingly accepted among white, suburban, middle-class men and women. But excessive or habitual drinking plagued many families. How did people view the drinkers in their midst? How did husbands and wives learn to cope within an alcoholic marriage? And how was drinking linked to broader social concerns during the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War era? By the 1950s, Rotskoff explains, mental health experts, movie producers, and members of self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon helped bring about a shift in the public perception of alcoholism from sin to sickness. Yet alcoholism was also viewed as a family problem that expressed gender-role failure for both women and men. On the silver screen (in movies such as The Lost Weekend and The Best Years of Our Lives) and on the printed page (in stories by such writers as John Cheever), in hospitals and at Twelve Step meetings, chronic drunkenness became one of the most pressing public health issues of the day.

Good Help is Hard to Find: A Few Comments About Alcohol and Work in Preindustrial England

Alcohol was an accepted and at times necessary complement to work in preindustrial England. It enabled laborers to endure the hardship of performing manual labor for 12 or more hours a day, and additionally enabled them to endure extremes of heat and cold. Employers' attitudes toward drinking on the job tended to vary according to the availability of labor: when it was scarce, as it was from the second half of the fourteenth century until the end of the Middle Ages, employers had no choice but to tolerate fairly heavy drinking both on and off the job; when labor was plentiful, as it was throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods, employers sought to control recreational drinking, while continuing to tolerate strictly occupational drinking.

Psychoanalysis of a man with active alcoholism

Psychoanalysis of a man with active alcoholism, who is able to resume recreational drinking, has never been described. Mr. A. began treatment in denial of his alcoholism. Analysis demonstrated an underlying splitting between his experiencing and observing ego. His analyst received a projection of his observing ego, the part that was worried about his drinking. Because this split was resolved within a therapeutic alliance, Mr. A. decided that he had been attacking and punishing himself with alcohol, and he elected to abstain from alcohol entirely. The first key event that lead up to this dramatic decision was a sense that his analyst was a separete person. The second, arriving for discussion within the analysis through a dream, was his conviction that he would have to choose either to continue to drink with loss of control at the cost of his analysis or that he would have to choose to continue analysis at the expense of having to stop drinking. Mr. A. then came to feel that his analyst was attacking and punishing him with a fee increase. After 15 months of complete abstinence, Mr. A. found that he could drink with rare symptoms, but he still felt saddled with an abusive analyst. Mr. A.'s rages about the fee came up most commonly right after weekend or vacation breaks in the analysis. But the interpretation of these rages as related to missing me were contemptously regarded as attempts to force him into my psychoanalytic schema rather than regarding his experience as valid. There was a dramatic shift of our alliance when Mr. A. was given complete control over the fee. I was freed to interpret and reconstruct the underlying early relatioship with his parents. The final part of this article describes Mr. A.'s working-through process, which stabilized his sense of autonomy and which reconstructed his early relationship with his parents. Mr. A. became convinced that it was up to him exactly how, when, and how much to drink. Drinking too much led to consequences that he chose not to endure.