[kstar]

It's more than just calories!

Personally, I became a regular wine drinker and was still running each day, some days as far as 10 miles and was still carrying many extra pounds (over 200!). After I cut my wine drinking to a few glasses a month, while still maintaining the running, I quickly dropped the weight and returned to my high school weight of 175. My extra weight was ALL booze (alcohol) related and not solely calorie based.

I found this article at the Johns Hopkins site. Emphasis added in bold is mine.


Time to fear beer

Body by Marcus

By: Marcus Gonzales

Posted: 12/3/04

I received a call from the Dean of Student Life last week. She offered me straight As next semester if I wrote an article about the disadvantages of alcohol. Well, maybe not. But I do think it is an important topic to cover since I know a lot of guys that complain about their body fat, but then spend Thursday night through Saturday night drinking their faces off.

According to a study by Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, M.D., "the main problem with alcohol is not the number of calories it contains but rather the effect it has on fat metabolism."

The study has shown that even a small amount of alcohol has a large impact on fat metabolism. Eight men were given two drinks of vodka and lemonade separated by 30 minutes. Each drink contained about 90 calories. Fat metabolism was measured before and after consumption of the drink.

For several hours after drinking the vodka, whole body lipid oxidation, a common measurement for the amount of fat your body is burning, dropped by 73 percent.

That means that in addition to consuming the calories of many beers and mixed drinks, your body is actually slowing the breakdown of calories that you have already consumed. When alcohol is consumed, it easily passes from the stomach and intestines into the blood and goes to the liver. In the liver, an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase mediates the conversion of alcohol to acetaldehyde.

Acetaldehyde is rapidly converted to acetate by more enzymes. So rather than getting stored as fat, the main fate of alcohol is conversion into acetate. The amount of acetate formed is dependant on the amount of alcohol consumed. Dr. Pasquale claims that the sharp rise in acetate puts the brakes on fat loss.

Your body tends to use whatever you feed it, and after a while becomes adapted to the nutrients you give it. Unfortunately, when acetate levels rise, your body burns the acetate instead of burning body fat or carbohydrates. Remember back to Bio class: acetate is basically the same product of beta oxidation of fatty acids and glycolysis. In this process, the glucose turns to pyruvate and then to acetate. When you add in the acetate produced from alcohol, the body realizes that it no longer requires the metabolic work to produce the necessary acetate. In that sense, your body takes the same stance on acetate as some people on welfare: Why work when you're getting the reward for free?

As far as fat metabolism is concerned, alcohol can be worse than taking in straight carbohydrates (carbs). When you ingest carbs the body gets the chance to metabolize through various steps to form acetate whereas acetate is formed from alcohol in just a few steps.

And if it's not bad enough, alcohol even has more calories than carbs. Haven't you ever wondered how low carb beers justify their labeling? The beers contain less than 100 calories even though they only have about 2.5 grams of carbs and 0.5 grams of protein. Using an estimate of about four calories per gram of carb and the same for protein, the beer would only have 12 calories! (If only dreams were true) So where do the other 80 or so calories come from? You guessed it, alcohol. The 12 grams of alcohol in your average low carb beer makes up the remaining 80 calories, at about seven calories per gram.

If you thought it couldn't get any worse, you were wrong. Before you pick up that beer, keep in mind that acute alcohol intoxication impairs protein synthesis and also disrupts the release of the anabolic hormones.

When it comes to partying and staying in shape, think twice about what you are drinking. And remember that a glass of water and a fun-loving attitude costs zero calories and makes you feel a lot better in the morning.

© Copyright 2007 News-Letter

source: http://media.www.jhunewsletter.com/media/storage/paper932/news/2004/12/03/Features/Time-To.Fear.Beer-2243871.shtml

Best,

Kurt