Brown University scientists conducting experiments with fruit flies found that hunger drives cravings for alcohol, providing context for understanding similar processes in the human brain.
It’s caloric, IIRC low effort to break down and numbs feeling. No wonder the lizard brain will be dancing and singing if it has been lacking fuel for a bit
That makes sense for beer and wine since theres usually still unconverted sugars in those but the body cant really get energy from ethanol, so it makes significantly less sense for addictions to hard liquors.
Ethanol metabolism does feed into the Krebs cycle and results in about 7 calories per gram. It just passes through some pretty nasty intermediate steps, with acetaldehyde circulating and causing tissue damage in the meantime.
I’m not sure how much I trust the cited experiment from 1902 you seem to be referring to. And more recent research seems to imply that alcohol has some suppressive effects on the mitochondria, which would interfere with the Krebs cycle.
Alcohol definitely interferes with all sorts of stuff, I’m not disputing that. The body prioritizes getting rid of circulating alcohol.
But if you look at the way the body metabolizes alcohol, using alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzymes to convert to acetaldehyde, and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymes to convert to acetate, the process accumulates acetate in the body. And acetate is metabolized in the Krebs cycle.
It’s caloric, IIRC low effort to break down and numbs feeling. No wonder the lizard brain will be dancing and singing if it has been lacking fuel for a bit
That makes sense for beer and wine since theres usually still unconverted sugars in those but the body cant really get energy from ethanol, so it makes significantly less sense for addictions to hard liquors.
Ethanol metabolism does feed into the Krebs cycle and results in about 7 calories per gram. It just passes through some pretty nasty intermediate steps, with acetaldehyde circulating and causing tissue damage in the meantime.
But you can get usable energy out of ethanol.
I’m not sure how much I trust the cited experiment from 1902 you seem to be referring to. And more recent research seems to imply that alcohol has some suppressive effects on the mitochondria, which would interfere with the Krebs cycle.
Alcohol definitely interferes with all sorts of stuff, I’m not disputing that. The body prioritizes getting rid of circulating alcohol.
But if you look at the way the body metabolizes alcohol, using alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzymes to convert to acetaldehyde, and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymes to convert to acetate, the process accumulates acetate in the body. And acetate is metabolized in the Krebs cycle.
I don’t know what experiment you’re referring to, but the metabolic pathway that ethanol follows, to acetate, is pretty well established. And that pathway accounts for how the body gets rid of something like 98% of the alcohol it consumes.
As the body gets rid of that poison, it consumes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, generating energy stored in ATP molecules.
Alcohol has calories. This is basic textbook nutritional science.