Alcohol as food

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 16

Alcohol as food

Sir,—Fermentation by yeast ceases when alcohol levels reach 15 per cent (what organism can exist for long in increasing amounts of its own excretion?). However Professor Richard Batt, in his talk to grocers, claims alcohol to be almost as safe as water. He bases this, seemingly, on the death rate for cirrhosis being only 0.57 per cent of all deaths in New Zealand. World figures (Addiction Research Foundation, Toronto, 1970-1977) show the United States averaging one litre a year less per capita in alcohol consumption, but having a death rate of three times that of New Zealand for cirrhosis a hundred deaths. Israelis average less than a third of New Zealand’s quota of alcohol a head, but have cirrhosis rates higher than the New Zealand figure. Do young New Zealand drinkers die on our roads before they can contribute to cirrhosis statistics, or do drinking New Zealand doctors refrain from forecasting their own gloomy future? — Yours, etc., G. H. BOSTON. June 2, 1986. [Dr R. D. Batt, Professor of Biochemistry, Massey University, replies: “Dr Boston has drawn r

attention to the tolerance of yeast cells to alcohol. I have also commented on this level of tolerance in the context that yeasts are eucaryotic organisms and so essentially the same in structure and function as a generalised mammalian cell. What has not been noted by Dr Boston is that ‘l5 per cent’ alcohol is equivalent to 15,000 mg/100 ml of growth medium. When a yeast cell ceases to produce alcohol — at 15 per cent alcohol — the cells are still alive and, if the alcohol concentration is reduced in the growth medium, the fermentation will proceed. The yeast situation quoted by Dr Boston is an excellent example of the extremely high level of tolerance which the structure and functions of eucaryotic cells have to alcohol. Dr Boston has commented on the cirrhosis of the liver figures for New Zealand and other countries. Rightly, he has noted that the correlation with per capita alcohol consumption is poor. His explanations for this are interesting, if somewhat contrived. A more probable explanation is that alcohol, per se, is not the major cause of cirrhosis of the liver. Social workers and others in the alcohol fields almost invariably cite cirrhosis of the liver as a prime health risk for people who misuse alcohol. If statistics do not support this explanation, other claimed health risks from drinking alcohol should be reevaluated.”]