Even a Little Alcohol Can Impair Drivers’ Decisions

With 38% of all traffic deaths involving alcohol, many states have lowered the legal limit of alcohol in the blood to 0.08%. But is that low enough? A new study done at Texas A&M; University found that drinking only one or two beers can significantly impair driving skills, especially one’s ability to make split-second decisions.

The study compared the driving performance of 19 men and women while they were sober and after they had drunk an alcoholic beverage that brought their blood-alcohol level to 0.04%, half the legal limit in some states. A 120-pound woman can reach the 0.04% level after only one beer; for a 150-pound man, it may take two beers.

The driving tests included recovery from a skid, steering, braking smoothly and several other maneuvers. The non-driving exercises involved balance, vision and reaction time tests. The test were repeated when drivers had more to drink, reaching blood-alcohol levels of 0.07%, then 0.10%.

At a level of 0.04%, the drivers’ ability had declined significantly. Not surprisingly, their scores got worse as their blood-alcohol level increased.

The study demonstrates that a person doesn’t have to appear drunk to be a danger on the highway. “I’ve seen people who can pass the standard tests of walking a straight line for nine steps and standing on one leg [after drinking] and still not be able to drive well. They can still mess up in a decision-making situation,” says Maurice E. Dennis, director of the Center for Alcohol and Drug Education Study at Texas A&M; in College Station, Texas.

American Driver and Traffic Safety Education Assn.

Breast Self-Exams May Not Prevent Cancer Deaths

Breast self-exams for women have been touted for years as a way to detect breast cancer at an earlier stage. But a new study has found that women who receive intensive instruction in breast self-exams are as likely to die as women who do not.

The study involved more than 266,000 factory workers in Shanghai. About half were given intensive instruction in self-exam, including monthly reminders, and practiced self-exam under medical supervision every six months for five years. The others received no information. After 10 or 11 years, the death rates from breast cancer in both groups were the same: There were 135 breast cancer deaths in the instruction group of 132,979 women and 131 deaths in the control group of 133,085 women. In the instruction group, more women found benign lesions, leading researchers to conclude breast exams without mammography may increase the chances of having a benign breast biopsy.

“This study confirms what we knew ... there is still no study that [breast self-exams] will make a difference in mortality and no study saying that it doesn’t. If there is an effect on mortality, it is a small one,” said Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer for the American Cancer Society in Atlanta. The cancer society continues to recommend mammograms, clinical breast exams by a doctor or a nurse, and breast self-exams, in that order, she said.

Journal of the National Cancer Institute 94(19):1420-1421, 1445-1457.

Explanation for Lethal Effects of Chronic Tiredness Is Offered

Chronic tiredness more than doubles the risk of a heart attack, and some studies have shown that it can be as harmful as high cholesterol. Now Dutch researchers have discovered a possible explanation for the life-threatening effects of prolonged fatigue, sometimes called “vital exhaustion.”

There is a delicate balance in the mechanisms that form and dissolve blood clots, and these processes follow a daily rhythm, said psychophysiologist Rob van Diest, the study’s lead author.

Van Diest and colleagues at Maastricht University found that the ebb and flow of clotting factors differed in 29 men who suffered from vital exhaustion compared with 30 healthy men.

For instance, the amount of fibrinogen--a protein that is important in the blood’s clotting--was higher in the exhausted men than those in the control group, and it was highest early in the morning.

Other studies have shown that a high fibrinogen level increases the risk of heart attacks, which occur most often in the morning.

The Dutch researchers also found that the mechanisms that normally counteract the blood-clotting process were less active in men with vital exhaustion.

“This study is one of the first to provide a possible explanation for why prolonged fatigue may be related to the early- morning excess of heart attacks,” Van Diest said.

Psychosomatic Medicine 2002 64:787-792.

Study Finds Diet Drinks Helped Limit Weight, Blood Pressure

People who turn to artificial sweeteners to lose weight may be on the right track.

For the first time, a long-term study comparing diet drinks and foods with those containing sugar found that overweight men and women consuming sugar, mostly in drinks, gained weight, and their blood pressure increased.

The comparison group that consumed artificial sweeteners lost a little weight, and their blood pressure remained stable.

The findings were unexpected, report the researchers, because other researchers have found that people who eat less sugar tend to eat more fat and so should gain weight. Research has also shown that people who ate food flavored with saccharin gained weight.

For 10 weeks, nutrition researchers in Denmark supplemented the usual diets of 41 overweight people with either sucrose, mostly as beverages, or with artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, acesulfame K, cyclamate and saccharin. The amounts of calories as fat and protein were the same.

People in both groups ate more food and drink over 10 weeks, but those in the sugar group consumed the most.

At the end of the 10-week study, those in the sugar group gained about 3.2 pounds more on average than the sweetener group.

According to Anne Raben and her colleagues at the The Royal Veterinary & Agricultural University in Frederiksberg, the sugar group may have tipped the scales because calories in fluids are less satisfying than those in solid foods, making it easier to consume too many in sweet drinks.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2002:76:721-729.

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Dianne Partie Lange can be reached at diannelange@cs.com.