Alcohol Bad - Fruit Smoothie Good
 

Thought this was interesting. I've always stopped the consumption of alcohol when on a train-up for something but never really knew why.

Perhaps we’ll soon see a team fruit smoothie instead of a team Beer at the end of a hard day. OK maybe not; but would be interested to hear thoughts on the general culture of alcohol consumption in SF and its possible negative effects on PT.

Thought the "...spirit of the team is at the bottom of the bottle..." quote was interesting.

Scimitar

Ok, it took a bunch of trainers and an actual Scientific study to tell us this.

Point taken; I think there are researchers out there still trying to prove that 2 aspirin can help relieve a headache. Research is funny that way.

However, the point of the study is germane to this community. If you are serious about your physical conditioning and mental health, you want to avoid consuming alcohol. There are a mulitude of detrimental effects that using alcohol can cause--from cardiovascular to neurological. Historically the medical community viewed alcohol with some tolerance (probably because we didn't want to know), but that is changing. Drinker beware.

On the flip side, a post work out snack containing carbohydrate and protein is likely to promote muscle recovery and development. Sure, seems like a "no-brainer," but sometimes you don't know until ya know.

Now that won't stop me from having the occasional Scotch, neat please, but it has become far more rare lately.

And, as a result, your life is . . . better? "Moderation in all things, especially Moderation.":)

I remember doing my PFT in PR.....well, drunk, along with a bunch of other.........drunks. We all lived and did rather well. I hate fruit, it reminds me of weakness...........:rolleyes:

I have been reviewing a number of studies, now that I started Pharm. It amazes me how many repeat studies are out there. Sometimes I think these folks just start a study just for job security.

Could this be a Bi-carb event? If so, sodas can also be implicated.

:munchin

RF 1

PS: neat is best!
j

I stand ready to be corrected, but all of the "adverse effects" studies I have seen regarding alcohol involve what most people would consider excess consumption.

As the the aforementioned study, I think it's an example of a dangerous trend in medical studies - I forget the proper name for the effect, but it's like the "straw man" fallacy in logic - you set your control group to an unrealistic treatment, and you wind up making your intervention look that much better.

In this case, let's apply it to scuba team guys relaxing after a vigorous surface swim - they head out to the bar that evening, are they likely to have 2-3 drinks apiece, or 6-7 drinks? (Of course we all knew there was one dude on every team without an "off" switch, but that's what team sergeants are for ;) )


Bottom line - enjoy a drink or two. If you find yourself regularly hitting 6 or 7, well, you're going to have more problems than decreased athletic performance to worry about.

Rich –

I agree that the evidence points toward a dose-dependent relationship between alcohol use and it’s detrimental effects.

No one questions that heavy alcohol use causes significant health problems.

However, one of the limitations of medicine is that it has focused more on extreme conditions, i.e. disease, as opposed to health optimization, e.g. vitamin deficiency vs. optimal intake. We know you can get too little Vitamin C, and we know you can get too much Vitamin C; but what level of Vitamin C intake is optimal for you? Same with alcohol: clearly immoderate use (defined differently by different investigators) has detrimental effects. But the consequences (beneficial or otherwise) of modest alcohol use are less well understood. Is there an optimal ‘dose’? :confused:

Think for a moment about how alcohol is metabolized. There are several pathways by which alcohol is cleared from the body (interesting to note that your liver views alcohol as a toxin that needs to be cleared.). The predominant pathway is the enzymatic conversion of Ethanol (the specific alcohol we drink, as found in Highland Park or Macallan) to Acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde (same chemical group as formaldehyde) is subsequently converted to Acetyl CoA. Acetyl CoA is converted to Fat. :(

Here’s the catch. Everyone’s level of enzymes is different, but in general the conversion of ethanol to acetaldehyde is faster than the conversion of acetaldehyde to fat. So, acetaldehyde accumulates, waiting for the next available enzyme. Unfortunately, acetaldehyde is a severe irritant and a precursor molecule of several different carcinogens. That is one mechanism by which alcohol causes cancer. Oral, esophageal, stomach, hepatic, colon, rectal, and breast cancer. Men can get breast cancer too. Alcohol creates fat, fat increases your estrogen level, estrogen further increases your risk of some breast cancers. Party on.

Now the odds are—and it’s just odds—the less alcohol you consume, the fewer carcinogens you are exposed to, and the less the risk of developing rectal cancer you incur.

So how little alcohol is safe? Zero, none, nada. Acetaldehyde may be converted to a carcinogen at any time. Every time you drink alcohol, you create acetaldehyde. :eek:

The Framingham study is one of the oldest and most revered studies in medicine. It is starting to reveal some other conclusions about alcohol use. The good news is that there seems to be a consistent finding that modest alcohol use (1-2 standard drinks for women, 2-3 for men) is somewhat protective against some cardiovascular disease. But increasingly there is evidence that even moderate or low alcohol use results in diminished brain volume. I’m stupid enough; I don’t need a smaller brain. Or cancer.

Alcohol disrupts sleep architecture, even small amounts. Do you need sleep? I know some of the tough guys out there think they don’t. Think again. Sleep is crucial for mental health, weight management, and is the time when you release growth hormone. Growth hormone is crucial for muscle recovery and healing.

So can you have a couple drinks after a workout or roadmarch and still function the next day? Why yes; I can’t remember a rugby game that didn’t end with beer, and I made it through practice the next day. But the question is not if you can do it, but are you optimizing your performance? The answer would seem to be ‘No.’ (Although I doubt a couple beers is why I never went on to play for USA. )

If you are OK with a sub-optimal performance, drink. These are probably small effects we are seeing anyway. But be aware you are making a choice and there is a lot we still don't understand about how alcohol interacts with our bodies.

Now where’d I put my Talisker? ;)

I personally think it’s a trade off.

I had a buddy in the NZ forces, Christian guy, refused to drink. Needless to say he didn't get along with his piers too well and was subsequently asked to leave.

Honestly I am tighter with my drinking buddies then I am with my non drinking buddies.
"...Team spirit starts at the bottom of a bottle...".
The study was based on 6 drinks not the 2-3 you'd have with your mates during SFQC Phase III + VI on a quite Saturday night.

The most interesting comment I've heard on this topic was from an SF guy
"I will not trust a guy on my team until I have seen him drunk."
(QPs can testify if this is true or not).
I guess you see the real person.
Loud Drink, Angry Drunk, Moronic Drunk, Fighting Drunk.

Alcohol is a social/relational lubricant, are the effects of the 1 x beer at the end of the day in the team room and the 2-3 at the Saturday Team BBQ at the 18Zs house really going to affect you that much?

I wonder if the old 90/10 rule applies. It takes 90% of the energy to get 90% of the results. It then takes 90% of the energy again to get that last 10%. The return on investment to get that last 10% is often not worth the required input.

The loss of half dozen beers a week might increase your performance by 5% but there goes the social, there goes the relaxation; possibly more unhealthy then the beer in moderation. Scientific Research by definition tends to fail to look at the big picture.

S

"The first group drank juice. The second had "a moderate amount" of alcohol added, equivalent to about six or seven standard drinks over two or three hours." (From the report.) 6 or 7 drinks doesn't sound like a moderate amount? sounds like falling-down-drunk to me.
(Who do I talk to about getting on the follow-up study?:D)

While technically a true statement, it is a meaningless one. Just because a "safe" limit cannot be described does not mean that low doses are harmful. I don't remember about the Framingham study, but I _do_ recall that all of the studies showing increased risk of oral / esophageal squamous cell, gastric and colorectal cancer were with larger doses of alcohol. Hepatic I don't recall of the top of my head but isn't that just due to the cirrhosis, in which case that one too?

I'm a resident.

What's sleep?

I had wondered, how common is drinking among the SF community? I personally am not a big drinker, but could easily be talked into having a couple beers with the team... just not all the time.

No moral problems with it, but I do notice the performance drop when I drink, and I don't feel that its worth it.

Study schmudy. Even with the current war, I think the unit was tighter when, after 1700, the BN CDR (LTC Skip or LTC Joe) might burst through the team room door and start counting the seconds it took for a cold beer to land in his hand. Performance? Well, it was a scientific-ish study. The SGM dragged all the newbies around Bangkok matching us drink for drink (that wasn't me pole dancing, I swear on your mother) back when Bangkok didn't close. Then he dragged us out of the rack for pt the next morning. It was a pass/fail event. There was no placebo group. However, I can attest that it was a double blind study.

Divemaster is right...
 

I've seen near entire units "sobering up In the middle of a 6 mile run.
\when I was in 1st Group (age 20) a lot of us would not get back to the barracks around 4Am with enough time to change into PT clothes and make Reveille, and then PT.
When I got to 10th I was inprocessing at the same time as COL Z ( the incoming Group Cmdr). I was assigned as Team Sgt of 055 and my first "change" to the Team status was to get beer in the frig, because I knew that the first time "Z" visited the team there had better by a beer in the frig... There was.
The team thought I was nutsas the outgoing CMDR forbade it at all levels.
"Z" came in, walked around the team room, opened the frig pulled out a beer and st with us for about an hour chatting with the team. it couldn't have happened better.

Your mind is your greatest weapon
 

In my experience in the SF community, there is a time and place for everything, including drinking. Just remember, that if you want to hoot with the owls, you still have to soar with the eagles in the morning.

Alcohol is a relevant tool in the SF soldier's interaction with other cultures. Cross cultural awareness would tell you that when you are working with the Polish SOF, you should be prepared to drink some (excellent) vodka. ETOH is an important part of many different cultures, and similarly to us, it serves well as a "social lubricant." This can be solid-gold when you're building rapport with the host nation forces, locals, etc... However, remember that while drinking may have an important purpose in their social interactions, getting drunk and stupid rarely is. A drunk SF soldier is one tiny step away from a total loss of rapport, precipitating an international incident, or fostering a foreign resentment that could one day affect foreign policy. No joke- other countries know us, and expect excellence from us.

I don't drink at all- it's a choice I've made because my mind is my greatest weapon, and even one drink can affect my judgement (regardless of whether or not I think so). This choice has not affected the rapport I share with my teammates, because their opinion of me is based upon my performance and my values, not upon whether or not I drink. Many were the times that, as the Detachment Medic, something went down and I was glad that I hadn't been drinking.

Spend some time on the teams- you'll learn very quickly that being a moderate to seldom drinker will not affect your relationship with your teammates; but let it affect your performance or have an alcohol related incident once, and it may affect your status permanently. SF soldiers must be reliable, and your reputation within our tiny community is, at the end of the day, the only thing you've got.