Drinking whisky will result in a worse hangover than vodka, according to research by US scientists.

The reason might lie in the number of molecules called “congeners” which it contains compared to vodka, the Brown University team said.

But the study also suggested that sticking to vodka all night rather than whisky would not improve your performance at work the next day.

The study is published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

The 95 volunteers for the research, all healthy alcohol users, had one night of “acclimatisation” before drinking either whisky or vodka the following night.

They were given enough alcohol to put them a third over the legal driving limit for the UK.

On the third night they were given a “placebo” drink containing no alcohol.

On each occasion, they were then asked how they felt the following day, and were tested on how well they could concentrate on tasks.

The volunteers who drank whisky reported far more hangover symptoms such as headache nausea, thirst and fatigue compared with those who drank vodka.

However, the overall performance at the concentration task was roughly the same between the two groups.

Professor Damaris Rohsenow, who led the research at Brown University in Rhode Island, said: “While people felt worse, they didn’t perform worse after bourbon (a type of whisky made in the US) than after vodka.”

He said that the study also showed that workers in “safety-sensitive” roles could be impaired by drinking – long after the alcohol itself had disappeared from the bloodstream.

Chemical trace

The study, which also monitored sleeping patterns in the volunteers, found that disrupted sleep was no worse in either group.

The reason why whisky might cause more unpleasant hangovers might lie in the number of molecules called “congeners” which it contains compared to vodka, said Professor Rohsenow.

These include small amounts of chemicals such as acetone, acetaldehyde and tannins.

Chris Sorek, the chief executive of charity Drinkaware, said that social drinkers should be aware that no alcoholic drink removed the risk of a hangover.

He said: “Christmas is a time to socialise and celebrate, but many people will be drinking excessively – drinking too much of any alcoholic drink can have a number of undesirable short and long-term effects.”

While exceeding recommended daily limits might mean hangovers the following day, he said, in the long term, regular heavy drinking could increase the risk of cancer or liver disease.

The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.

Female drinkers did not benefit to the same extent, the study in Heart found.

Experts are critical, warning heavy drinking can increase the risk of other diseases, with alcohol responsible for 1.8 million deaths globally per year.

The study was conducted in Spain, a country with relatively high rates of alcohol consumption and low rates of coronary heart disease.

The research involved men and women aged between 29 and 69, who were asked to document their lifetime drinking habits and followed for 10 years.

Crucially the research team claim to have eliminated the “sick abstainers” risk by differentiating between those who had never drunk and those whom ill-health had forced to quit. This has been used in the past to explain fewer heart-related deaths among drinkers on the basis that those who are unhealthy to start with are less likely to drink.

Good cholesterol

The researchers, led by the Basque Public Health Department, placed the participants into six categories – from never having drunk to drinking more than 90g of alcohol each day. This would be the equivalent of consuming about eight bottles of wine a week, or 28 pints of lager.

For those drinking little – less than a shot of vodka a day for instance – the risk was reduced by 35%. And for those who drank anything from three shots to more than 11 shots each day, the risk worked out an average of 50% less.

The same benefits were not seen in women, who suffer fewer heart problems than men to start with. Researchers speculated this difference could be down to the fact that women process alcohol differently, and that female hormones protect against the disease in younger age groups.

The type of alcohol drunk did not seem to make a difference, but protection was greater for those drinking moderate to high amounts of varied drinks.

The exact mechanisms are as yet unclear, but it is known that alcohol helps to raise high-density lipoproteins, sometimes known as good cholesterol, which helps stop so-called bad cholesterol from building up in the arteries.

‘Binge-drinking’

UK experts said the findings should be treated with caution because they do not take into account ill-health from a range of other diseases caused by excess drinking.

“Whilst moderate alcohol intake can lower the risk of having a heart attack, coronary heart disease is just one type of heart disease. Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle, is associated with high alcohol intake and can lead to a poor quality of life and premature death,” said the British Heart Foundation’s senior cardiac nurse, Cathy Ross.

“The heart is just one of many organs in the body. While alcohol could offer limited protection to one organ, abuse of it can damage the heart and other organs such as the liver, pancreas and brain.”

The Stroke Association meanwhile noted that overall, evidence indicated that people who regularly consumed a large amount of alcohol had a three-fold increased risk of stroke.

“Six units within six hours is considered ‘binge-drinking’ and anyone indulging in regular ‘binge-drinking’ increases their risk of stroke greatly,” said research officer Joanne Murphy.

Public health specialists warned no-one should be encouraged to drink more as a result of this study.

“The relationship between alcohol and heart disease remains controversial,” said Professor Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“While there is good evidence that moderate consumption is protective in people who are at substantial risk of heart disease – which excludes most people under the age of 40 – we also know that most people underestimate how much they drink. This paper adds to the existing literature but should not be considered as definitive. ”

In the UK, the recommendation is no more than two to three units of alcohol a day for women – the equivalent of one standard glass of wine – and three to four units for men.

The British Liver Trust said: “There have been several studies suggesting that small amounts of alcohol can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in men over the age of 40.

“But these are often misinterpreted by people looking for a health reason to consume alcohol.

“If you want to look after your health, stay within the limits of no more than 3-4 units a day for men or 2-3 for women and aim to give yourself at least two days off alcohol a week.”

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, agreed that the message from this study was not clear: “At the end of the day, you’re juggling different risks and benefits, maybe helping your heart or maybe damaging your brain and liver.

“The simple message is moderation.

“Stick to the guidelines, and you won’t go far wrong.”

In the study of 38,000 patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries who were admitted to U.S. hospitals between 2000 and 2005, 38% had alcohol in their blood. Such patients had a lower risk of dying of their injuries than those who hadn’t been drinking.

“This study really brings up more questions than it answers,” says coauthor Ali Salim, MD, the program director of the General Surgery Residency Educational Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles.

“It’s a bad thing to say alcohol is good, especially since it’s responsible for so many of these injuries. But our study suggests there may be some survival advantage for people with elevated [blood alcohol] levels.”

Each year, about 2 million people in the U.S. experience traumatic brain injuries, and 56,000 die and 80,000 are permanently impaired as a result. Alcohol plays a role in 40% of fatal car crashes, and half of patients hospitalized for trauma are intoxicated at the time of injury.

The study may help experts develop therapies for traumatic brain injuries, but it has important limitations as well, Dr. Salim says.

Patients in the study who had been drinking were younger, had less severe injuries, and spent less time on a ventilator or in an intensive care unit than other patients. (Alcohol, however, still seemed to protect the brain after taking these factors into account.) Overall, 9.7% of people who hadn’t been drinking died after a brain injury, compared with 7.7% of those with alcohol in their blood.

It’s not clear why alcohol might be helpful, although it could dampen the impact of catecholamines, hormones like adrenaline and dopamine that are released by the body after a traumatic injury, according to Dr. Salim. “We think [the blood alcohol] may attenuate that response,” he says.

Alcohol may also help lower the body’s core temperature, says David Hovda, PhD, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the director of UCLA’s Brain Injury Research Center. Lower body temperatures are known to slow cell death and swelling caused by severe brain injuries.

But alcohol’s beneficial effect may be severely limited, says Hovda, who was not involved with the study. He notes that the results of animal studies have been mixed. Some animal research suggests that low levels of alcohol protect the brain, but the effect is lost at higher levels; others have found that alcohol lowers survival.

In the new study, researchers did not look at the amount of alcohol in the patients’ blood, but they did find that alcohol was associated with a greater risk of complications, even as it seemed to lower mortality rates.

It’s not clear if alcohol could be helpful if given after an accident. “Giving patients [alcohol] after a traumatic brain injury is much different than having it on board during the traumatic brain injury,” Hovda says. The protective effect may only work when the injury occurs or may work later. “One would have to know the therapeutic time window and the dose.”

Using alcohol as a therapy is unlikely, but understanding how it protects some people could help scientists develop new treatments for traumatic brain injuries, Dr. Salim says.

In the study, researchers found that adults living in states that permit the purchase of alcohol before age 21 were more apt to have alcohol and drug problems later on than adults living in states that prohibit people under the age of 21 to buy alcohol.

The study, published today in an early online edition of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, suggests that lower drinking ages may lead to more problems with alcohol and drugs later in life.

“It seems plausible that frequency and intensity of drinking in late adolescence may have long-term effects on adult substance use patterns,” Dr. Karen Norberg, of Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues note in the report.

It’s highly possible, they add, that the higher legal drinking age may help keep a lid on the amount of alcohol consumed before age 21. Until the mid-1980s, many states allowed people to purchase alcohol at the age of 18. However, all states now have a minimum drinking age of 21 because of a 1984 federal law that used eligibility for funding to pressure for the change.

Norberg and colleagues found differences in rates of alcoholism and drug abuse among 33,869 U.S. adults exposed to different minimum legal drinking age laws.

A little more than half of the adults studied (52 percent) would have been allowed to purchase alcohol before their 21st birthday, the investigators note.

After adjusting for factors that might skew the results, the researchers found that people who lived in states that permitted buying and drinking alcohol before age 21 were about 30 percent more likely to have suffered from alcoholism and 70 percent more likely to have had a drug problem in the past year. (For comparison, about 10 percent of all of the people studied met criteria for alcohol abuse in the past year, and about 3 percent met criteria for marijuana or other illegal drug abuse in the past year.)

This was true even among people evaluated in their 40s and 50s.

Norberg and colleagues calculate that had the minimum legal drinking age been set at 21 in all states throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the prevalence of alcohol and substance abuse disorders among adults born in the U.S. between 1948 and 1970 would have been nearly 15 percent lower than that recorded over the past 20 years.

Researchers Say Exercise and Diet May Prevent Some Cases of Breast Cancer

Sept. 3, 2009 — More than 70,000 breast cancer cases a year in the U.S., or 40% of all cases, could be prevented with lifestyle measures like maintaining a healthy weight, eating well, exercising, and limiting alcohol consumption, a new analysis shows.

The joint project from the nonprofit research groups American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund represents the largest review ever of the research examining lifestyle and breast cancer.

Researchers analyzed nearly 1,000 studies, including 81 conducted since the data were last examined in 2007.

“It is now very clear that lifestyle is a strong modifiable risk factor for breast cancer, but I don’t think women have really gotten the message,” says Cancer Institute of New Jersey epidemiology professor Elisa Bandera, MD, PhD, who helped write the report.

“Women tend to overestimate the role of genetics in breast cancer and underestimate lifestyle,” Bandera tells WebMD. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard a patient say, ‘I can’t have breast cancer. Nobody in my family has it.’ Women are very concerned about breast cancer, and they need to know they can lower their risk with lifestyle.”

Lose Weight to Lower Risk of Breast Cancer

Perhaps the biggest single thing a woman can do to lower her risk, especially after menopause, is maintain a healthy weight.

Obesity is now widely recognized as the most important modifiable risk factor for breast cancer among postmenopausal women, and it also increases a postmenopausal woman’s chance of dying from the disease once she has it.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that as many as 18,000 deaths from breast cancer each year in the U.S. could be prevented in women over age 50 by maintaining a healthy weight throughout adulthood.

About three out of four breast cancers in this age group are fueled by the hormone estrogen, which is also produced in fat tissue. Estrogen levels in overweight, postmenopausal women are 50% to 100% higher than among lean women, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Breast cancers also tend to be detected later in overweight women, mainly because tumors are harder to detect with mammography.

The joint report recommends that women stay as lean as possible without being underweight to lower their breast cancer risk.

Other recommendations include:

• Get moving: Women should engage in physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day, every day. According to the National Cancer Institute, women can reduce their risk of dying from breast cancer by 25% if they remain physically active.
• Limit alcohol: Women who drink alcohol should limit their consumption to no more than one drink a day.
• Breastfeed: New mothers should breastfeed their infants exclusively for up to six months and then add other liquids and foods. There is convincing evidence that breastfeeding lowers breast cancer risk.
• Eat healthy foods: The report recommends avoiding junk foods, limiting red meat and salt, and making fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains the mainstays of a healthy diet.

Plant-Based Diet

Nutritionist Colleen Doyle, RD, of the American Cancer Society, tells WebMD that although no single food, food group, or nutrient has been shown to lower breast cancer risk, it is clear that eating a healthy, mostly plant-based diet is protective.

A red meat and processed meat-heavy diet is now known to increase the risk for colorectal cancer, and there is some suggestion that these foods increase breast cancer risk as well.

Doyle says the research attempting to target the role of single foods, food group, or nutrient in breast cancer has largely been a bust.

“Years ago, we recommended limiting all fats and that evolved into limiting saturated fats,” she says. “Now we have moved away from specific food-based recommendations to focusing on an overall dietary pattern stressing a wide variety of mostly plant-based foods.”

The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) also recommends a mostly plant-based diet to lower cancer risk. To promote the idea, the group has developed what it calls the “new American plate” to replace the more traditional meal that has meat as its main component and refined starches as a mainstay.

AICR nutritionist Alice Bender, RD, tells WebMD that at least two-thirds of the “new” plate should be plant based, including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, or beans; no more than one-third of any meal should come from animal protein.

“This is an easy way to visualize what a healthy diet should look like,” she says. “It’s really pretty simple.”

SOURCES: American Institute for Cancer Research,

Those hoping to change that are meeting on September 9, the ninth day of the ninth month, for a forum dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of drinking while pregnant and the plight of children and families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).

State legislators, health care professionals, parents, social workers and drug prevention and treatment specialists are coming together at Prairie State College in Chicago to mark international FASD Awareness Day.

A new brochure titled “It’s Only Nine Months” is also being released by Prevention First, a nonprofit drug prevention organization participating in the forum, addressing some of the common questions and misperceptions women have about drinking while pregnant.

“Our research found that women are getting conflicting information about drinking while pregnant,” explained Karel Ares, executive director of Prevention First. One focus group participant said she had heard that wine or Champagne were good for a woman’s blood while pregnant, Ares said. Others thought drinking was safe in the first few months of pregnancy.

“There is no research that proves that any amount of alcohol is safe at any time for unborn babies,” Ares pointed out. “But there is a great deal of research about the many lifelong problems caused by permanent brain damage from drinking alcohol while pregnant.”

Ares said that one of the most important groups of people she wants to get this message are doctors. “FASD is preventable, yet some obstetricians are still telling their patients they can have a glass of alcohol now and then. It’s like playing Russian Roulette with babies’ lives, and we are working to educate them about the risks.”

Dr. Todd Ochs, a clinical instructor of pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, one of the scheduled speakers at the forum, said that part of the problem is that doctor training hasn’t changed to reflect new research about pre-natal alcohol exposure. “We used to worry about women using heroin or other illegal drugs while pregnant, but there are too many variables with alcohol that we don’t yet understand, so the best advice a doctor can give is that they shouldn’t drink at all,” Ochs noted.

Dr. Ochs has diagnosed and treated many children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders and points out, “We know that drinking will cause damage, we just don’t know how much damage will occur or what amount of alcohol will cause the damage, so why would anyone do something that’s known to be harmful to a baby?”

Among the speakers at the FASD Day forum are State Rep. Al Riley (D-Hazel Crest), State Sen. Maggie Crotty (D-Oak Forest) and psychologist Dr. Jacquelyn Bertrand from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.