RISKS AND BENEFITS OF MODERATE ALCOHOL

申请人摘要：虽然过量饮酒的有害影响 消费是公认的，适度饮酒的影响 并没有得到很好的理解。 目前，人们认为适度饮酒 消费减少冠心病（CHD）的风险，增加骨骼 密度，是抗焦虑的，并促进社会互动。 因此 目前看来，适度饮酒是有益的。 更 令人担忧的是，适度饮酒可能会增加 乳腺癌的风险，它也可能导致过度饮酒 消费 因此，可能存在风险/获益权衡， 酒精消费。 我们建议评估适度饮酒的影响 在卵巢切除者中， 雌性食蟹猴（Macaca fascicularis），一种用于 每个端点。 该动物模型将允许随机分配 适度饮酒或安慰剂治疗组，从而避免了问题 自我选择的人群和自我报告的饮酒量 在人类研究中。 拟议的实验还提供了完全控制 酒精剂量、饮食和其他已知影响疾病终点的变量。 在拟议的实验中，酒精作用的假设机制将 在疾病发展的早期和中期阶段， 是不可能用人类做实验的 因此，使用这种动物 该模型避免了等待相对罕见的临床事件发生的需要 以获得可靠的疾病风险测量。 我们的长期目标是 确定适度饮酒的相对风险/益处， 同时评估冠心病、骨质疏松症和乳腺癌风险。

APPLICANT'S ABSTRACT: While the deleterious effects of excessive alcohol consumption are well recognized, the effects of moderate alcohol consumption are not well understood. Currently, it is thought that moderate alcohol consumption reduces the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), increases bone density, is anxiolytic, and promotes social interaction. Thus, there currently appears to be some benefit to moderate alcohol consumption. More worrisome is the possibility that moderate alcohol consumption may increase breast cancer risk, and that it may also lead to excessive alcohol consumption. Hence, there may be a risk/benefit trade-off to moderate alcohol consumption. We propose to assess the effects of moderate alcohol consumption on CHD, osteoporosis, and breast cancer risk in ovariectomized female cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis), a useful animal model for each of these endpoints. This animal model will allow randomized assignment to moderate alcohol or placebo treatment groups, thus avoiding the problems of self-selected populations and self-reported alcohol consumption inherent in human studies. The proposed experiment also offers complete control over alcohol dose, diet, and other variables known to affect disease endpoints. In the proposed experiment, hypothesized mechanisms of alcohol action will be addressed during the early and middle stages of disease development which is not possible using human subjects. Consequently, the use of this animal model obviates the need to wait for relatively rare clinical events to occur in order to obtain reliable measures of disease risk. Our long-term goal is to determine the relative risks/benefits of moderate alcohol consumption by simultaneous assessment of CHD, osteoporosis, and breast cancer risk.