Heavy consumption of alcohol could damage DNA, a latest research states.
Researchers at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and the Autonomous University of Nayarit in Mexico examined the effects of weekend binge drinking on the DNA of teenagers.
For the study, the researchers divided the students of Clinical Biochemistry at the National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico, in two groups; groups consisted of those who drink at weekends and group two who did not drink at all.
The study authors decided to conduct the research in order to find out the effects of weekend drinking after the researcher Adela Rendón noticed most of the students seemed to be less attentive in the class on Mondays after binge drinking sessions on weekends.
All the participants were aged between 18 and 23 and their average consumption of alcohol was 118g, which is about a litre and a half of beer.
"We saw that the ones who drank (alcohol) sustained twice as much oxidative damage compared with the group that did not consume alcohol," researchers said in a press release.
The researchers measured the activity of the alcohol enzyme dehydrogenase, responsible for metabolising ethanol into acetaldehyde, acetoacetate and acetone. They further decided to continue with a test to check whether the DNA was also affected. They extracted the nucleus of the lymphocytic cells in the blood and subjected it to electrophoresis (comet test).
"The interesting thing is that if the chromatin is not properly compacted, if the DNA has been damaged, it leaves a halo in the electrophoresis," which is called, "the comet tail," said Rendon. The chromatin of the exposed group left a small halo, greater than that of the control group.
As much as 44 percent of the students involved in binge drinking over the weekends were reported to have damaged their cells due to alcohol. Whereas just 8 per cent of those in the in the control group had their cells damaged.
The researchers also found that considerable harm to the DNA could only happen when the comet tail exceeds 20 nm. But that did not happen in the any of the students' case.
"Fortunately but the fact is, there should not have been any damage at all because they had not been consuming alcohol for very long, they had not been exposed in a chronic way," Rendon said.
The World Health Organisation statistics reveal that alcohol alone is responsible for 2.5 million global deaths every year. And, youngsters between the ages of 19 and 25 account for 320,000 of them, researchers said.
The study was published in the journal Alcohol.
