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Don’t feel guilty if you choose to indulge in a glass of wine or two this holidays. According to new information, appearing Tuesday within the journal Vaccine, you may be strengthening your immune system and helping the body fight off infections.
As area of the study, lead author Ilhem Messaoudi, an affiliate professor of biomedical sciences within the University of California, Riverside’s Med school, and her colleagues trained twelve rhesus macaques to self-administer alcohol.
Each creature was first vaccinated against small pox, then allowed to access either a four-percent ethanol solution or calorically-matched sugar water, based on whether or not they were area of the experimental or the control group. Additionally they had free access to water as a substitute fluid, as well as a way to obtain food, the researchers noted.
The monkeys’ daily ethanol consumption was monitored over the course of a 14 month period, plus they were vaccinated again halfway with the study period. Messaoudi’s team discovered that there was a definite variation of daily ethanol intake on the nine-month duration of self-administration.
“Like humans, rhesus macaques showed highly variable drinking behavior. Some animals drank bulk of ethanol, while some drank moderately,” stated Messaoudi, who collaborated on the paper with behavioral neuroscience professor Kathleen Grant.
Essentially, the macaques were split into two different groups based on their ethanol consumption. The very first group included animals that consumed a greater amount of alcohol, with blood ethanol concentration (BEC) levels exceeding the legal limit of 0.08 percent. This group was dubbed the “heavy drinkers.”
The second group included animals that consumed less alcohol. They averaged BEC levels between 0.02 percent and 0.04 percent, and were designated to be “moderate drinkers” by the investigative team.
“Prior to consuming alcohol, all of the animals showed comparable responses to vaccination,” explained Messaoudi. “Following contact with ethanol, however, the animals showed markedly different responses after receiving the booster vaccine.”
She and her associates learned that the animals who consumed the best amount of ethanol demonstrated greatly diminished vaccine responses when compared with the control group. However, animals that consumed moderate amounts of alcohol demonstrated signs of enhanced vaccine responses.
The outcomes of the research could lead to an enhanced knowledge of the way the immune system works, and may also result in breakthroughs with techniques to improve our biological response to vaccines and infections, the researchers said. This could be especially beneficial in seniors, who receive virtually no benefits from influenza vaccines, along with other vulnerable populations.
“These surprising findings indicate that some of the benefits of moderate levels of drinking might be manifested through boosting the body’s immune system,” said Messaoudi. “This supports what has been widely believed for a while: moderate ethanol consumption results in a reduction in all causes of mortality, especially cardiovascular disease.”
“It has been known for a long time that moderate drinking is assigned to lower mortality,” she added. “Our study, conducted on non-human primates, shows the very first time that voluntary moderate alcohol consumption boosts immune responses to vaccination.”
Messaoudi is quick to point out that she is not advocating people to use alcohol for defense mechanisms support should they have a personal or genealogy of excessive drinking. However, she said that the average person would seem to profit health-wise by having a glass of vino with dinner C especially when you are looking at heart and immune health.
