From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: ALCOHOL
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 09:55:18 -0700

JAGUAR wrote in message
<7583-3B029F66-8@storefull-613.iap.bryant.webtv.net>...
The new automobile fuel. This is it's intended purpose. And as a
cleaning solvent.
     JAGUAR



And a food. We're built to ingest it. It's in the fruit which our
ancestors ate. And most humans have a liver enzyme (alcohol
dehydrogenase) which deals specifically with alcohol
metabolism, and nothing else. We've checked this: blockade
of this enzyme, or genetic lack of it, causes no problems in the
non-alcohol ingestor; therefore the enzyme has no other
hidden function. Without the enzyme, alcohol is 100
times more toxic (a few tens of grams makes
humans desperately ill).

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition
Subject: Re: ALCOHOL
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 12:10:24 -0700

Jay Tanzman wrote in message <3B02B32F.3DF02B21@sph.llu.edu>...
>Anybody know how thermogenic ethanol is?  It contains 7 kcal/g, but we
>waste some proportion of that as heat.  Anybody know how much?
>
>-Jay


We waste some proportion of all foods as heat, in the
sense that we can't get mechanical work out of it. The maximum
mechanical work you can get out of food is roughly 25%, but that's
only if you DO mechanical work (exert a force through a distance;
standing or holding something up doesn't count), and the figure is
only if you look at the EXTRA food you must eat, in order
to do the work. That sits on top of an absolute metabolic requirement,
which all goes into heat unless you're anabolic (growing or putting on
 weight.) If you sit on your rear end and you're not gaining weight,
of course 99.9% of your calories end up as heat (albeit performing
important metabolism first, like
running your brain, keeping your muscles in tension, etc). I suppose
we'll have to count the kinetic energy of the air you exhale, that's not
much mechanical work.

Alcohol is converted to acyl groups and burned like sugars are, and feeds
into your ATP generating mechanisms with essentially the same efficiency.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.pharmacy,alt.skincare.acne
Subject: Re: Minocycline and consumption of other products specifically milk 
	and alcohol
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 18:45:52 -0700
Message-ID: <a4uvf5$skt$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>

> > "Wayne Alan Simon" <ariess@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:<3n598.144002$E4.4869282@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com>...
> > > a few pints of alcohol a day can't really be good for anybody?
> > > Except the liquor store owner, distributer, wholesalers, and liquor
> > > manufacturers.
> >
> > Yeah of course. I don't mean I want to consume that everyday. However,
> > if I do consume that amount or more in one day am I effectively
> > negating the effects of the antibiotic or is this just generic
> > mis-information?


It's mis-information. Alcohol doesn't "negate" the effects of ANY
antibiotic. It has a nasty interaction with metronidazole/Flagyl which can
make you ill, but the antibiotic still works as an antibiotic.  For other
antibiotics, there's no problem.

SBH

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Is a wino's breath flammable?
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 2002 13:06:50 -0600
Message-ID: <a8ve4n$9hm$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

"Jay F. Shachter" <jay@m5.chi.il.us> wrote in message
news:6525a5d7.0204070840.31e0d844@posting.google.com...
> Last week, a conversation with a doctor impressed me with the amazing
> extent to which humans can develop tolerance to ethanol.  I had always
> thought that the maximum amount of alchohol you can have in your
> bloodstream was 0.4% (doctors, apparently, speak in terms of the
> previously unknown parts-per-hundred-thousand, so they call 0.4%
> alchohol "four hundred").  When you get 0.4% alchohol in your blood,
> it's coma, respiratory arrest, and death.  Or so I thought.
> 
> Evidently I was wrong.  "Four hundred is for you and me", she said, "but
> I've frequently had people in my E.R. with levels above six hundred. I
> once had someone walking and talking who was over twelve hundred". Can
> you imagine that?  A person walking around whose blood is 1.2% ethanol?
> The human body is truly marvelously adaptable.


Yes. Like many hospitals, those I trained in had an informal "700 Club" for
those people who came in walking and talking with levels over 700 ppm (0.7%,
or roughly nine times legal driving limit).

I think it possible that somebody who can walk and talk at 0.7% is NOT
driving impaired at 0.1 %.  But nobody has ever successfully used this in
court as a defense. <g>.  For one thing, it's hard to prove scientifically,
since people who can walk and talk at 0.7% generally go into withdrawal at
0%, so you don't have a good control to see if they're relatively impaired
on any skill test at 0.1%. Which is too bad, because it would be a
fascinating study.

SBH

Newsgroups: sci.med
From: kurtullman@yahoo.com (Kurt Ullman)
Subject: Re: Is a wino's breath flammable?
Message-ID: <0oHs8.3347$3P4.264583@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 19:35:24 GMT

In article <a8ve4n$9hm$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>, "Steve Harris"
<sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com> wrote:
n
>court as a defense. <g>.  For one thing, it's hard to prove scientifically,
>since people who can walk and talk at 0.7% generally go into withdrawal at
>0%, so you don't have a good control to see if they're relatively impaired
>on any skill test at 0.1%. Which is too bad, because it would be a
>fascinating study.

   If lucky. I floated from Psych to our Detox unit on occassions at one of
the hospitals. We had one in full bore DTs right after admission (seeing the
bugs, wild vitals, etc). According the BAC we took, she was STILL 0.4, a true
professional (grin).

------------------------------
"I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things
that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take
great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
-Marcus Cole- Babylon 5

From: "Steve Harris" <sbharris@ix.RETICULATEDOBJECTcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Do benzodiazepines reduce social inhibitions?
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 17:18:09 -0800
Message-ID: <b5j24d$ned$1@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>

"amarcus" <amarcus@grex.org> wrote in message
news:sxxdrt546687@sci-med.org...
> Hi, I don't post regularly here but every once in a while I do read some
> posts; I think this newsgroup is the appropriate place to ask the
> following question: I have read that benzos (like xanax) reduce anxiety
> by increasing the binding of the neurotransmitter GABA to its cellular
> receptors. I know also that alcohol has this effect too (as it is also
> anxiolytic). But alcohol is known to reduce the "social" inhibitions
> because of its qualities as an anxiolytic. My question is would xanax
> then also reduce social inhibitions and make one more socially outgoing?
> Or is there more to alcohol's reduction of inhibitions than potentiating
> GABA binding?


There is. In addition to calming anxiety, alcohol
anesthetises the frontal lobes, resulting in lessened
insight, foresight and judgement.  So you get a double
effect on social inhibitions. Candy's dandy but liquor is
quicker.

This is not to say that a baseline level of anxiety doesn't
help in matters of foresight and judgement. But there are
some people who are naturally low-anxiety types (you see
them tightrope walking, rock climbing, and doing other
daredevil stunts). They survive (those that do) only because
they are able to compensate by thinking clearly and well.
Alcohol screws even that up, leaving you with no survival
skills at all.

So the answer is that of course benzos work on social
inhibitions, but the extent of their effectiveness depends a
lot on what is driving the inhibition.  How rational is it?
If you're going into a social situation in which you really
have no good rational reason to worry about what your
experiences is going be, then benzos will work much better.
On the other hand, if you're dressed wrong, smell bad, and
are going into a place where you know people don't like you
to begin with, then only being drunk is going fix that.

SBH




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