"Low" (high?) alcohol consumption in mice, ameliorates high fat diet induced weight gain and insulin resistance; amongst other health markers.
Study: Long-term low-dose ethanol intake improves healthspan and resists high-fat diet-induced obesity in mice PMID: 32639947
This is fitting for whatever shenanigans members of this sub got up to last night (New Years Eve) :). This study examined the effects of "low" alcohol consumption in mice by providing 3.5% ethanol in their drinking water throughout their lifetime and comparing the results to a control group that received no ethanol. Researchers evaluated metabolic markers, survival rates, exercise performance, and food and water intake. Additionally, they tested these same markers on a high-fat diet for 12 weeks to examine how ethanol consumption interacted with different dietary conditions.
I put "low" in quotation marks, as the ethanol-fed mice drank around 6ml of water a day on average, throughout their lifetime. This corresponds to around 0.21ml of ethanol a day, and the average body weight during the lifetime of the mice, was not given, however, by visually estimating the frequency of mean body weight throughout the weeks (ranging from 25 to 37g), we can estimate that the median lifetime bodyweight was around 30g.
0.21ml of ethanol /0.03kg = 7g of ethanol per kg of body weight for a mouse. This does not translate to human doses, as mice metabolise alcohol faster than humans. Therefore, we have to calculate the human equivalent dose. Here is the VERY interesting part.
Mice, metabolise ethanol at 625mg an hour per kg of body weight . Humans metabolise ethanol at 110mg an hour per kg of body weight
Therefore humans metabolise alcohol at 0.176x the rate a mouse does. So 7ml of ethanol per kg for a mice translates to 1.23 ml of ethanol per kg, for a human.
For an 80kg male, this corresponds to 98ml of ethanol a day or 9.8 units of alcohol a day. This corresponds to 3.147 litres of beer a day (5% ABV), 1.5 litres of wine a day (12% ABV), or 343ml of a 40% ABV spirit such as vodka.
So I think it's fair to say that this is not a "low" dose of ethanol, and rather a high one. Keep in mind this was spread out throughout a 24hr period, so one cannot compare this to a night out, where you may drink 10 drinks in a matter of hours.
Now back to the study, what were the miraculous effects of this "low" dose of ethanol?
"Low" dose ethanol completely prevented the body weight gain and impaired glucose metabolism / insulin sensitivity that the control group experienced on a high fat diet, as shown by oxygen consumption and CO2 consumption being elevated in the ethanol group. Keep in mind that the high fat diet started when the animals were at 30g bodyweight, and were consuming roughly the same amount of water (6ml a day) therefore, my calculations on ethanol a day stand corrected.
A substance to exert these effects, especially in a safe manner, is absolutely unseen in my opinion. You will find a lot of substances that can partially prevent the effects of a high fat diet, or you will find very dangerous substance that will have profound effects such as DNP. However, for a substance to completely prevent any effect of a high fat diet is unheard of. These effects are stronger than ANY pharmaceutical or supplement that you find on the market, and it is certainly stronger than anything talked about on this forum.
One may wonder; was this amount of ethanol safe for the mice' organs? Maybe these profound metabolic effects were due to increases in glycolytic metabolism (unhealthy lactic acid energy metabolism)?
The answer to that is; no. The ethanol group did not show any damage to any organs, inflammatory and liver markers were decreased and normal in the ethanol group.
"In our study, the long term 3.5% ethanol-fed mice did not show the common negative effects of alcohol. At this dose, we did not observe any pathological structural changes in the liver, the heart, or the kidneys; neither did we detect any impairments of learning, memory, and cognition by the water maze. "
And that's not the end; see the collections of other amazing markers of health and mitochondrial function they tested.
