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Text Copyright 2007 by Nancy Sculerati MD - all rights reserved
  • Alcohol
  • Ethanol
  • Ethyl Alcohol

Ethanol, also named ethyl alcohol, is most often just called "alcohol".

  • Both food and drug - alcohol is a simple carbohydrate that gets you high.

It's double nature puts it in a very special category. That ability to offer both sustenance and change of mood has made it a focus of celebrations, and of religious rituals, for thousands of years. It's incusion in the traditional adult diet of so many cultures means that it is routinely encountered as a drink at mealtimes, and its caloric content as a simple carbohydrate means that is is "eaten", sometimes in large doses, by people who are not at all interested in a meal, but may end up imbibing the caloric equivalent of several meals in order tyo feel the efect of the drug.

  • Alcohol is well tolerated in moderate doses by most people, Yet, despite its successful use by millions over millenia, "most people" is certainly not all people - and alcohol has been responsible for the devastation of many people's health. For the drinker :
    • That's because some people are easily addicted to it, as a drug, and are not able to use it in moderation.
      • Alcohol is very toxic to the body if used long term in high doses. It causes irreversible damage.
    • It's also because alcohol, as a food, is the kind of simple carbohydrate that can push off-balance the metabolism of people with trouble regulating their bood sugar, in particular, people with diabetes mellitus have their metabolic problems pushed out of control by food calories of this substance. A combination of alcoholism and diabetes make ethanol extremely dangerous for the people who have both tendencies.

Ethanol is not simply a pharmacologic agent that is a routine part of fine dining in many cuisines and cultures, but also is a source of food energy, that is, of calories.
  • "Alcoholic drinks are a major source of energy—for example, six pints of beer contain about 500 kcal and half a litre of whisky contains 1650 kcal. The daily energy requirement for a moderately active man is 3000 kcal and for a woman 2200 kcal." [Paton A: Alcohol in the body.BMJ. 330(7482):85-7, 2005 Jan 8.]
 An ethyl group in organic chemistry is two carbon atoms bonded together with single bonds and enough hydrogen ions to fill out the orbitals and make the molecule stable. What makes it an organic alcohol is a double bonded -OH group, and so
that is absorbed from the stomach at a slow rate, and absorbed from the small intestine at a very rapid rate. That timing is important in its effects, as this drug is also a beverage that is an accepted part of dining in much of the world.

Finally, alcohol is absorbed as a carbohydrate and much of what is ingested goes straight to the liver in the portal circulation. Since alcohol enetrs the liver in a much higher concentration than the rest of the body, the "portal blood concentration" and "liver concentration"of alcohol is much higher than what gets into the rest of the blood stream. A person feels the effect of alcohol according to ots concentration in the brain, a physician or policeman measures the amount of alcohol in the systemic blood, or according to what exhaled by the lungs.

In other words, the liver is subject to toxic damage from alcohol because its doses are higher than the ones "felt" and measured by a breatholyzer. Since it's the liver that is primarily responsible for breaking down most ingested drugs and toxins, alcohol damage to the liver decreases the ability of the body to detoxify alcohol as well as a host of other medicines and drugs. Additionally, since the liver plays a role in glucose (blood sugar) regulation, liver disease from alcohol also further impairs the metabolism of diabetics and pre-diabetics.
A Holistic View by Dr. Sculerati
Alcohol is special.This simple organic carbohydrate is both as a food and drug - and that dual status puts it in a special position. First of all, unlike some other foods that have pharmacologic properties, this one makes people high (a little tipsy) - and does it in doses that are ordinarily taken at meals. Secondly, the fact that it is a simple carbohydrate means that it is rapidly converted to sugar once ingested, and plays havoc with the metabolism of people with insulin issues.
References
  • Reuben A. Alcohol and the liver. Current Opinion in Gastroenterology. 23(3):283-91, 2007
Further Reading
External Links

ALCOHOL - PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS
Site by David J. Hanson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the SUNY Potsdam
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