Why can I handle tequila but not rum?
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What is the science behind how alcohol affects our bodies?
Hey, it's Jane Lindholm filling in for Ira and Flora, and you're listening to Science Friday. We are on the precipice of summer right now, so that means the season for porch beers and happy hours is upon us. I myself am partial to a midweek near beer these days. You know, we nerds here at Science Friday have been thinking a lot about the science of alcohol. More data is coming out that shows it's not really good for us to drink, but a lot of us do it anyway. So what's going on in the chemistry of our alcoholic bevies? And what are they doing to our brains and bodies? Joining me now are Dr. Tom Shellhammer, a brewer and professor of fermentation science at Oregon State University. He's the past president of the American Society of Brewing Chemists.
And Dr. Jackie Barker, who studies what alcohol does to our brains and our memories at Drexel University's College of Medicine. Welcome to Science Friday to you both. It's great to have you with us. I'm delighted to be here.
Likewise.
Jackie, start us off. How do you think about this tension that we know drinking isn't good for us, but we do it anyway?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the challenges is being informed. And I think it's really awesome that you're starting this conversation because being able to have the information to make a smart choice about whether you want to enjoy a beer or two beers, or maybe you make that near beer decision, it starts with that information. And I think there's a growing appreciation that even small amounts of alcohol do impact our brain, do impact behavior. But so do a lot of other things we do, eating lunch meat, sodas, living in a city where you have to rely on cars. And so we're all making choices across our lives about which rewards are valuable enough to us to maybe take some risk alongside them. Jackie, do you drink?
I do.
Tom, do you drink? I do. Yeah, for me, it's soft serve ice cream, which in Vermont we call creamies. And I know it's not doing me any good physically, but mentally it is crucial to my mental health.
Oh, yeah. I think we need to do things that make us enjoy ourselves and happy. And alcohol is part of it. I think it's been part of that forever.
millennia. Yes. We have a lot of listeners who have questions about alcohol and its effects on us and things that we've sort of heard over the years maybe, but don't really know what the science says. So let's start with this call that we got about alcohol.
Hi, my name's Mike and I'm calling from Santa Barbara, California. I've always wondered if it's just kind of a psychosomatic thing, but do different alcohols affect different people's differently. So when I drink tequila, I feel really good and like almost no hangover the next day. But when I drink gin or rum, I feel pretty bad. And am I just making this up because I want to like tequila? Or does it really have different effects on different people's physiologies? That's it. Thank you.
I love this question because I have heard that so many times over the year that certain alcohol will make you feel a certain way and others won't. Is that right, Jackie, or is it all in our heads?
Well, I think that the answer to this is yes and no. Right. So I hope Tom will weigh in as well. But I think part of this is that the way we drink different alcohol is often very different. Tequila shots might look like a very different night than red wine on your couch. And the speed that you consume that alcohol, whether you're eating with your alcohol or having a night out dancing, whether you're staying hydrated alongside that is going to have a variety of different effects on that next morning and on how you associate learned experiences and environmental outcomes with that particular alcohol. And so I think a lot of people I hear also, you know, I have a really fun time. I get, we used to call it getting wheels when I was in college, when I have tequila, or I always feel really relaxed and want to read a book when I have red wine.
That's not necessarily the difference of the alcohol. It's the context and how you've learned to consume those alcohols.
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