Weekend Alcohol Consumption Can Lead To DNA Damage

Weekend Alcohol Consumption Can Lead To DNA Damage

While most people consider a weekend spent out drinking and partying something normal, at least for young healthy adults, new research suggests that high levels of alcohol consumption can lead to severe repercussions, even DNA damage.

Researchers from the Autonomous University of Nayarit located in Mexico have started to analyze oxidative damage caused by alcohol consumption in young, healthy adults. Oxidative damage is considered for this study damage suffered by the proteins membranes and DNA.

Participants in the study ranged from ages 18 to 23. They were separated into two groups. One who had to consume 1.5 liters of alcohol each weekend and another that had to stay completely alcohol free.

Researchers used thiobarbituric acid reactive substances or TBARS to determine the difference between the two groups. The group that consumed alcohol suffered twice as much oxidative damage when compared to the alcohol free group.

The two groups were also submitted to a second test, called the comet test. It’s goal was to determine if alcohol consumption had any form of negative impact of the DNA of the participants. The results of the comet test showed that the alcohol consuming group had a whopping 44 percent of their cells damaged while the alcohol free group had a substantially lower 8 percent damaged cells.

Posted by George Daniels on Friday January 03 2014, 6:40 AM EST. Ref: FOX News. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0