This guy:
Posted on 08/10/2005 10:55:59 AM PDT by LibWhacker
A gene that helps fruit flies develop alcohol tolerance has been found – and named “hangover”. The gene also controls the flies’ response to stress, and the researchers say that a similar pathway linking alcohol tolerance and stress probably functions in humans.
The findings may explain why people who have been in a stressful situation often have a blunted response to alcohol and may drink more to feel inebriated, experts say, putting them at greater risk of becoming addicted.
Ulrike Heberlein at the University of California at San Francisco, US, and Henrike Scholz from the University of Würzburg in Germany, exposed fruit flies to ethanol vapour. Intoxicated fruit flies show similar behaviour to tipsy humans: they lack coordination and postural control and then fall asleep. It took the flies an average of 20 minutes to recover following their exposure.
After four hours on the wagon, the same Drosophila were again exposed to alcohol. By now, they had developed a tolerance to alcohol and so needed more to reach the same drunkenness, and took longer to “dry out” - 28 minutes.
But flies with a defective form of the hangover gene still took 20 minutes to recover from inebriation time after time - never building up a tolerance.
Stressed out
The researchers then investigated how the gene was involved in stress responses since, in humans at least, the alcohol and stress responses appear to be linked.
A stress response was triggered in a new batch of fruit flies with working hangover genes by heating them to 37°C for 30 minutes. Four hours later, the flies were exposed to alcohol and despite this being their first alcoholic experience, they showed a high tolerance – taking an average of 29.5 minutes to sober up.
But the same increased alcohol tolerance was not seen when flies with the defective gene were exposed to alcohol. “There is growing recognition that stress, at both cellular and systemic levels, contributes to drug- and addiction-related behaviours in mammals. Our studies suggest that this role may be conserved across evolution,” Heberlein and Scholz suggest.
The findings help to define the role that stress has in addiction, says Leslie Morrow, at the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, University of North Carolina, US. “Prior stress can induce tolerance to alcohol even if a person has never had a drink before. And that increased tolerance means that a person can drink more and more before becoming inebriated, making it more likely that they will end up with an addiction problem.”
There may be people in the population who have an over-expression of the human equivalent of the hangover gene and who may especially at risk from developing addiction problems, Morrow adds.
Who's Hangover Gene?
ROFL!!
There's a classic Richard Pryor comedy bit about a wino getting sick, and after he's expelled all he can, during about the fourth round of the "dry heaves", he frantically implores, "oh, Lord, please... I ain't got nothin' left to throw up but my n*ts!"
This guy:
I forgot about Ralph!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Accidents and diabetes are probably one and two most common killers of alcoholics.
I believe cardiac disease (heart attacks, etc) and Cirrhosis are probably in the same ball park.
The problems with the numbers is that there is so much overlap its difficult to figure which is which.
If someone has Diabetes (self induced), the odds are pretty good they either have or are going to have Cirrhosis, along with heart problems.
You'd be hard pressed to find any medical works knocking down Cirrhosis as one of the leading killers of Alcoholics.
Most (not all obviously) doctors usually are quick to name cirrhosis as a major killer of alcholics.
My Lab will NOT drink out of the toilet . . . she prefers the water dish we leave in the shower stall.
However, the three Siamese cats DO drink out of the john. It's pretty disconcerting to come waltzing into the bathroom and see a skinny little Siamese tail straight up in the air and two little hind feet gripping the seat for all they're worth . . . wish I had a pic but they always take off running when I come in . . .
Tooooooooooooooooooo Funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Both of my lab mixes will ONLY drink out of the toilet in the house. The only time they will drink out of a bowl or bucket is outside.
OTOH, I've only had one dog in my life that didn't drink out of the toilet.....and she was a dachsund :)
Gets a lot of laughs at the hunting club - her personal chamois ear-drying towel, her personal folding chair, her Hella cooling fan mounted on her crate, her designer neoprene wet suit for chilly water (well, actually, all the hunting dogs have one of those).
All thoughts of royalty are cast aside when she sees a duck fall out of the sky, though . . .
Your princess sounds like mine - except mine only has 2 legs :)
Nope, mine aren't hunters.....well the lab/chow is a bug hunter....she can actually catch a housefly :)
The lab/chessie has always just been a big old baby - afraid of thunder, so you can imagine her reaction to a shotgun blast.
Yeah, but if she had had a stepladder...
LOL!!!!!
And remembering that dog (she's been gone 30 years) you're right :)
The old "genetic predisposition" argument.
Our Siamese would also drink out of the toilet. And, whenever we entered her room and she was on her litter box, she would meow irately at us, as if she we were as embarassed as anyone else would be at someone walking in on them while on the loo.
My Lab is also very modest . . . to the point that she will back under a bush to do her business and look away if you are looking at her. It actually is nice, because you don't step in "surprises" walking across the lawn. On the other hand, sometimes her byproducts are hard to find when patrolling with the scoop . . .
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