NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Stress appears to enhance alcohol's sedative effects while at the same time dampening its stimulative properties, a new study suggests. This could mean that stress takes the edge off alcohol, rather than the other way around.

Drug abuse researchers have long been interested in the relationship between stress and alcohol consumption, and have wondered if stress influences alcohol's effects. Research in animals and humans suggest that stress could lead to heavier alcohol consumption.

"The notion seems intuitive but it has never been studied in a controlled laboratory situation," lead author Dr. Anna H. V. Soderpalm of the University of Chicago, Illinois, told Reuters Health in an interview.

To investigate, Soderpalm and co-author Dr. Harriet de Wit put 11 healthy male volunteers between the ages of 21 and 31, none of whom had a drinking problem, through the rigors of a stress-inducing math test. When the researchers measured a peak in the stress hormone cortisol in the men's saliva, they offered them orange juice spiked with Everclear, which is 95% pure grain alcohol. The men then answered questions about their mood state.

The results were compared with those from another nine men who went through the same test but drank only orange juice. The investigators also assessed the men's responses on another day when they drank either beverage and were not stressed.

Stressed men who got the alcoholic drink reported being less stimulated--"increased ratings of feeling down and inactive"--after drinking alcohol, the authors report in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Men who drank the non-alcoholic drink reported liking the drink better and wanting more if they were stressed. But the stressed men given alcohol did not want more, which the researchers suggest may be because they were given a relatively high dose.

"After consuming 0.8 g/kg of ethanol (about four drinks) within 15 minutes, these subjects may already have reached a maximally desirable drug effect," they write. "It will be interesting to determine if stress increases desire for more alcohol if a lower dose of alcohol is administered."

Soderpalm and de Wit add, "This result may be related to the idea that people drink to relax, although in our study alcohol did not change the mood state, but rather the mood state changed the effects of alcohol."

"Stress appears to increase the sedative effects of alcohol, and decreases its stimulative effects," Soderpalm said in an interview with Reuters Health. This may have the potential to cause some people to drink more alcohol when they are stressed, she noted.

Ultimately, Soderpalm said that she and de Wit hope to learn whether stress does indeed lead people to keep reaching for another drink.

SOURCE: Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 2002;26:818-826.

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