There have been many studies regarding the effects of drinking a lot of alcohol in a short amount of time on the body, but scientists have apparently now found the first-ever possible way to stop the binge drinking urge altogether, something that could ultimately even lower bigger issues such as alcoholism.
In the past, Food World News has reported other discoveries in regards of binge drinking, like how this practice can potentially disrupt the immune systems of healthy young adults, and the fact that TV alcohol ads can ultimately lead to underage drinking; however, the study on the binge drinking urge is a different ballpark altogether.
According to Medical News Today, the study on binge drinking urges was developed by the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine, under the name "NPY signaling inhibits extended amygdala CRF neurons to suppress binge alcohol drinking" - the research was recently published in the Nature Neuroscience journal.
The Independent reports that the major breakthrough of the study came in the form of binge drinking urge studies, as scientists found that it could be suppressed by controlling a compound in the brain, named Neuropeptide Y (NPY), that could ultimately also stop people from developing alcoholism later in life.
According to Zee News India, researchers of the binge drinking study found that the compound, NPY, acted in the extended amygdala, an area of the brain that's been linked to stress and reward.
Basically, the way this can be controlled to prevent binge drinking is that there's a specific population of cells that produces some sort of "pro-drinking" molecule, corticotropin - and by mimicking the actions of NPY, the scientists were able to suppress binge drinking alcohol in mice.
"What is particularly exciting is that these findings suggest that restoring NPY may not only be useful for treating alcohol use disorders, but may also protect some individuals from becoming alcohol dependent," said Todd E. Thiele, one of the co-authors of the binge drinking urge study.