Alcoholism And Epigenetics

By Carlos Herrero Carcedo

Acute and chronic exposure to ethanol involves epigenetic variations in specific neuronal circuits of the amygdala, brain region responsible for emotions, satiety, aggressiveness and consolidation of memories.
Excessive intake of alcoholic beverages alters the levels of gene expression in the amygdaloid neuronal circuits, through epigenetic variations such as DNA methylation and posttranslational modifications of histones, causing behavioral changes in alcohol consumption habits related to tolerance and dependence on this drug.
Alcohol is a neurotoxic substance related to more than 60 different types of diseases. The present book analyzes, in a clear and simple way, the health problems induced by the excessive consumption of ethanol.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carlos Herrero Carcedo
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020

Carlos Herrero Carcedo

Autor de dos Libros con tapa: Manual Básico de Farmacología y 200 Ideas para Mejorar la Rentabilidad de tu Farmacia, una publicación en la revista Alimentación, Equipos y Tecnología: La histamina en las distintas etapas de fabricación de conservas de atún y seis Ebooks: Disruptores Endocrinos, La Salud no es un Negocio, Obesidad Infantil. Rista. Respuesta Insuficientemente Adecuada, Vivir sin Cáncer, Ser Mayor sin Edad y Predisposición a Ser Homosexual.Posee tres licenciaturas (Farmacia, Ciencias Químicas, Ciencia y Tecnología de los Alimentos) y experiencia en los departamentos de Calidad, Producción y Ventas.

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ALCOHOLISM

AND EPIGENETICS

Carlos Herrero Carcedo

www.carlosherrerocarcedo.com

ALCOHOLISM

AND EPIGENETICS

Carlos Herrero Carcedo

www.carlosherrerocarcedo.com

Copyright © 2020 by Carlos Herrero Carcedo

All rights reserved

LEGAL WARNING

It is strictly prohibited without the written permission of the copyright holder, the reproduction of this work by any means or process including reprography and computer processing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. WHAT IS ALCOHOLISM?

2. ALCOHOL BIOCHEMISTRY

3. EPIGENETICS

4. EPIGENETICS AND ALCOHOL

5. METHYL-GROUP DONORS

6. FETAL EXPOSURE

7. ADOLESCENCE AND ALCOHOL

8. ALCOHOL AND CANCER

9. ABBREVIATIONS

1. WHAT IS ALCOHOLISM?

Alcohol is a drug that causes tolerance, physical addiction and psychological dependence, which is related to more than 60 types of physical and mental health problems. The effects of alcohol consumption on the nervous system are quite rapid although they depend on various factors such as the amount, frequency, age of onset, years of regular consumption, sex, age, weight, fetal exposure, genetics, presence of food in the stomach, etc.

Ethyl alcohol or ethanol is a depressant of the Central Nervous System, also responsible for the high number of traffic accidents that occur year after year on roads around the world. In Spain, 29% of drivers who died in 2015 exceeded the limits of blood alcohol allowed for driving (0,5 g/l in blood or 0,25 mg/l in expired air).

Alcohol is a neurotoxic substance that significantly affects adolescents because it induces, rapidly, alterations in the neurochemical, cellular, synaptic and structural brain patterns. The age at which you have the first contact with alcohol is around 13,6 years, doubling the consumption of alcohol and tripling the percentage of drunkenness between 14 and 16 years. The importance of delaying as much as possible the age at which the consumption of alcoholic beverages begins has been verified.

In the adult, alcohol presents a nonspecific action, with a wide variety of simultaneous effects, acting on an infinity of brain targets that activate a complex system of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. Despite the serious damage that alcohol causes in the liver, pancreas or kidneys, the brain is the organ that suffers most from the effects of this drug during adulthood, adolescence and the fetal period.

According to the World Health Organisation, alcoholism is a chronic disorder of behaviour characterized by alcohol dependence and the inability to stop the intake and/or abstain from alcohol. WHO includes alcoholism as a diagnostic category in the Classification of Mental Disorders and Behaviour due to alcohol consumption of the International Classification of Diseases in its tenth revision (CIE-10) and defines:

a) Alcoholics are those who drink excessively and whose alcohol dependence has reached such a degree that it determines the appearance of visible mental disturbances, or certain interference in physical and mental health, in interpersonal relationships and in the adequate social and economic functioning; or those that show the initial signs that precede the development of said phenomena.

b) Alcoholism is a psychic state, as well as habitually also a physical state, result of alcohol consumption and characterized by behaviours and other responses that always include compulsion to drink alcohol continuously or periodically, in order to experience psychic effects or simply avoid the inconvenience caused by his absence.

For the American Psychiatric Association, the term alcoholism includes alcohol dependence disorder and alcohol abuse disorder.

Excessive alcohol consumption has three levels of affectation:

1. Consumption of risk: daily consumption of more than 40 g/day of ethanol in men and 25 g/day of ethanol in women, being moderate consumption 2 glasses of wine or beer (20 g/day of ethanol).

2. Harmful consumption: regular consumption above 60 g/day of ethanol in men and 40 g/day of ethanol in women.

3. Alcohol dependence: imperative need to drink alcohol and decreased ability to control the intake of alcoholic beverages.

Alcohol does not kill neurons, that is, it does not reduce the number of nervous cells, what really causes is a decrease in the