Alcohol

1
Alcohol

• Ethyl alcohol or ethanol
• Only caffeine is used more widely
• Recreational, not therapeutic

2
Vocabulary of alcohol

• lt Arabic al kuhl, powder of antimony
• A series of organic compounds
• Isopropyl alcohol, methanol, ethanol
• Fermentation
• Sugar water yeast ---gt ethanol CO2
• Distillation Perhaps discovered in Arabia,
  first described in detail by the Dominican
  scholar Albertus Magnus

3
Albertus Magnus (1193-1280)
German saint, teacher of Thomas Aquinas
4
More vocabulary of alcohol

• Fermented beverages Beer, wine, cider, and mead
• Distilled beverages Brandy, rum,
  usquebaugh/whiskey/bourbon, schnapps
• Fortified beverages Sherry, port, madeira,
  muscatel, vermouth, Cisco
• Mixed beverages Gin, vodka, liqueurs

5
Still more vocabulary

• Measuring alcohol content
• The moonshiners test
• The proof system
• Proof spirits
• Overproof liquor
• Proof numbers
• The US system Percentage by volume
• The British system Percentage by weight

6
History of alcohol

• Multiple people groups, except native North
  Americans and Pacific Islanders
• Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Israel
• Classical Greece
• Rome and the Christians
• Britain

7
Gin Lane, a woodcut by English painter and
engraver William Hogarth (1697-1764). Hogarth
satirized contemporary English life. Note the
deplorable conditions and the implied
connection to gin.


8
The picture is different on Beer Street,
as Hogarth depicts a scene of prosperity for the
masses, a flourishing of the arts and learning in
the public square, affection between
the genders, and ruination for the pawnbroker.
9
The gin epidemic in Britain
Significant Events By Year Gallons Sold
10
America and alcohol

• British immigrants brought heavy drinking habits
  to the colonies
• Spanish settlers in California brought
  grapevines Cortez, Jesuits, Franciscans
• Puritans landed at Plymouth Rock perhaps because
  they ran out of beer Crews supply
• Brewing began almost immediately in taverns
  commercially at New Amsterdam (1633) and
  (legally) Charlestown, MA (1637)

11
More American history

• Puritans used alcohol, but put progressive legal
  and social controls on abuse
• Colonial Harvard had its own brewery
  Commencements became uproars.
• American Revolution brought social changes and
  problem drinking business first, the Triangular
  Trade, and fur trading with Native Americans

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• The Whiskey Rebellion
• Western Expansion
• Industrial Revolution
• The temperance movement and respectability
  Character
• The Eighteenth Amendment (1920) and the Volstead
  Act (1919) Effective?
• The Twenty-Third Amendment (1933)

13
Pharmacokinetics of alcohol

• Administration and absorption
• Oral
• Both water and fat soluble
• 80 absorption from upper intestine
• Thus, rate limiting factor is stomach emptying
• Total absorption is unaffected by food
• 90 access to all body compartments

14
Pharmacokinetics of alcohol 2

• Metabolism and excretion
• 95 of alcohol is metabolized by alcohol
  dehydrogenase enzyme
• 85 of that metabolism is in the liver
• up to 15 is done in the stomach
• All women, alcoholic or not, have 50 less
  stomach alcohol dehydrogenase than men
• Women appear to be even more vulnerable than men
  to intoxication and chronic effects

15
Pharmacokinetics of alcohol 3

• More on metabolism
• Two-step metabolism
• Alcohol is converted by alcohol dehydrogenase to
  acetaldehyde
• Acetaldehyde is converted by aldehyde
  dehydrogenase to acetic acid, then to CO2 and
  water in the Krebs cycle
• Zero order metabolism
• Disulfiram/Antabuse

16
Pharmacodynamics of alcohol

• Perhaps not unitary
• High doses may disrupt membrane functioning
  (fluidization)
• Low doses act on synapses, particularly
• GABAA-2L subunit EtOH is an agonist
• protein kinase phosphorylation
• intracellular mRNA changes
• GABA-consequent effects on Ach, NMDA, and DA

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Neurotransmitter effects

• Inhibits release of Ach Cognitive impairment
• Inhibits NMDA receptors for glutamate
• Agonizes DA from VTA to nucleus accumbens, the
  reward center.
• This last effect produces the addiction potential
  for both alcohol and nicotine.