Little alcohol could damage fetus
Rat study hints one drink a day during
pregnancy may be dangerous
18 November 2002
INGRID HOLMES
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| Heavy drinking in pregnancy can
lead to fetal alcohol syndrome. |
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A new animal study hints that even a little alcohol during
pregnancy may affect a baby's brain. A group of adult rats flunked a
navigation test1. Their mothers had
consumed quantities of alcohol while pregnant that were analogous to
one drink a day for a human during the first six months.
Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
advises pregnant women to limit their daily alcohol intake to one
small glass of wine or beer or a measure of spirits. This is to
reduce the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome - the learning and
behavioural difficulties seen in children whose mothers drank
heavily throughout pregnancy.
The rodent research, carried out by Daniel Savage and colleagues
from the University of New Mexico Medical School, suggests that
there may be more subtle effects of low-level alcohol intake that
become obvious only later in life, as more complex tasks are taken
on.
"Behavioural deficits appeared in rats that are relevant to
humans," says psychologist Charles Goodlett of Indiana
University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. But, he warns, "there is
an enormous step between the gestation periods of rats and humans,
so we must be careful about extrapolating the data too much".
Savage and his colleagues also found altered levels of glutamate
in their rats. Levels of this key messenger molecule were one-third
lower than normal in the hippocampus, the brain region that is
responsible for learning and memory.
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We must be careful about extrapolating too much from
rat data
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Charles Goodlett
IUPU
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So how much alcohol is safe? "We really don't know the magic
number," says Savage. "In the absence of definitive information, it
is better to abstain," he says. "Why take a chance?"
Neurologist Michael Charness at Harvard Medical School agrees.
"For every kid with fetal alcohol syndrome, there are another ten
who have been exposed to alcohol, have no obvious physical defects
but do have cognitive problems." The rat results are striking and
not entirely surprising, he says. |
