Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/18/2014

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Alcohol

Christmas & Hanukkah

Photo from pinterest.com
Photo from pinterest.com

Olives and Olive Oil

Continue reading Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/18/2014

Pre-Partying and Drinking Games Increase Odds of Extreme Drinking Behaviors in College Students

A new study examined the concept of extreme drinking in college students, and whether certain behaviors such as “pre-partying” or drinking games influence how extreme the drinking actually gets.

Many of us know that a lot of alcohol is consumed during college, and is often the first time adult children have been away from the protective eyes of their parents.

A new study out of Penn State University, the #9 Party School in the US in 2014 and moving up to #7 in 2015 according to the Princeton Review, looked at whether extreme drinking was more likely on days

Photo by Smedpull (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Smedpull (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
when the students reported pre-partying or playing drinking games.

A couple of definitions in case it’s been too long since your college experience:

  • Pre-partying: a.k.a. “pre-gaming” – Constitutes drinking prior to leaving the dorms and going out to the bars or other parties.
  • Extreme drinking – According to this study extreme drinking involves drinking so much that BAC levels were 0.16% or greater, enough alcohol was consumed to result in stumbling, or the individual drank enough to pass out (or in the case of the image above, blacking out in a dog crate with a 40 strapped to your hands).

400 college seniors that were at the legal drinking age (21) were observed in this study. 4 different extreme drinking outcomes were measured: 1) drinking at least 8 drinks for women and 10 drinks for men; 2) BAC of at least 0.16; 3) stumbling; and 4) passing out.

Important Findings:

Continue reading Pre-Partying and Drinking Games Increase Odds of Extreme Drinking Behaviors in College Students

Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/17/2014

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Wine

Alcohol

Christmas & Hanukkah

Continue reading Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/17/2014

Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet Drops in Economic Hard Times

Frequency of consumption or adherence to the Mediterranean diet

Photo by Rannpháirtí anaithnid, spitzl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Rannpháirtí anaithnid, spitzl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
has been on the decline in the past decade or so, though the exact reason why is not known. Of course, there are theories, but it is not clear what the causes are, or if there are multiple factors as work.

One theory is that this decrease in adherence to the Mediterranean diet may be linked to the global economic declines during the years between 2005 and 2010.

One recent study examined this very theory, surveying 21001 Italian citizens over the course of the five year period between 2005 and 2010. Adherence to the Mediterranean diet scores and wealth scores were monitored, as well as other socioeconomic data, for each participant over the course of the 5 year study.

Important Findings:

Continue reading Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet Drops in Economic Hard Times

Wine, Mediterranean Diet, and Your Health News for 12/16/2014

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Wine

Alcohol

Christmas & Hanukkah

Olive Oil

Mediterranean Diet

Association is not Causation