So it seems that the good doctors up at Harvard are performing some truly groundbreaking research. They’re studying kudzu, that infernal weed that seems determined to devour the South (not that anyone would miss it). More specifically, they’re examining its effects on people who consume alcohol. As CU’s medical advisor, I’m glad people are finally hearing our cries for more alcohol related research.
Apparently, taking kudzu causes people to imbibe less, which researchers theorize is related to the kudzu increasing the effects of the alcohol on the body. So you get drunker with less beer. Maybe I should be adding kudzu to my beer instead of gin.
That’s all very interesting but I find the actual research methods much more fun than the results, published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. They would put 20-somethings in a fake apartment in their lab equipped with a TV, a recliner, and a fridge full of beer. Then they sat around and recorded how much beer the subjects drank even down to sip-by-sip measurements.
From the paper:
“Participants were permitted to watch TV or movies
or listen to music, but they were not permitted to do
their homework or other work. Free access to beverages
began at 5:00 PM (only one beverage at a time), and they
were permitted to drink the beers as fast or as slow as
they desired during the 1.5-hr drinking session.â€
How can I get in on this? You get paid to drink beer and watch TV? When I used to work in a sleep lab (as a lab tech, not as a subject) at that very same venerable institution there was no TV and definitely no beer, just rectal temperature probes, white walls, time isolation, and near insanity of the subjects. I’m in the wrong field.
So don’t be surprised if you see Justin out gnawing on some ivy.
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Justin already feeds on weed when given the chance…