Archive for the 'Alcohol' Category

LAST DAY of School! Let’s be Safe in the Summer

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Summer Safety

Today is the last day of school for my 4 children. Summer brings such great joy and freedom yet more children are sent to the emergency room from injury in the summer than any other time of year. Here are my summer safety tips to help keep you and yours safe!

Dr. Deb’s Summer Safety Tips (more…)

Alcohol Caffeine Combo Creates Chaos

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Party like a Rock Star to ring in the New Year usually means lots of alcohol but many more are adding caffeine to the mix to “party stronger-party longer.” Rum and coke has always been around but new friends like red bull and vodka and even premixed alcoholic energy drinks are the rage. A new study in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience shows that mixing the two may be much more dangerous than you think.

Alcohol is a depressant so people usually stop drinking when they feel too drunk or too tired. Caffeine added takes away the perception of being drunk so one may continue to drink. You really don’t sober up with a cup of coffee, you just may feel more alert so you take on more risks and still perform poorly as tested by University of Kentucky researcher, Mark Fillmore

In a recent study in the Journal of Behavioral Neuroscience, scientists gave groups of young adult mice alcohol alone to cause intoxication, caffeine alone in the equivalent of one up to six or eight cups of coffee for humans and a combination of both.

They looked at 3 functions:

Learning, Anxiety and Locomotion

(more…)