Does Exercising Make You Drink More Alcohol?

According to one study done at the University of Houston, yes!

Seeing as New Year’s Eve has come and gone and we’re sure a lot of you have made resolutions to stay fit this year, we thought we’d enlighten you with this interesting study.

Researches at UofH put a selection of lab rates and put them under very distinct conditions to see which animals were prone to drinking more alcohol- those who exercise and those who don’t. These were their findings:

One of the more telling new studies examined the issue of whether being fit and exercising reduces the urge to drink. For the experiment, researchers used adult male rats with an inbred taste for alcohol. Half of the rats were given access to running wheels for three weeks. The others were kept in cages without wheels. After three weeks, the running wheels were removed, and half of the animals from each group were allowed unlimited access to alcohol for 21 days. Earlier studies by other researchers found that animals given equal access to exercise and alcohol — they were allowed to sip booze while on a running wheel — chose to drink less than animals not exercising. Based on those results, “we had anticipated that exercise would reduce” the rats’ drive to drink, said J. Leigh Leasure, an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Houston and senior author of the study, which was presented in November at the 2010 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego. Instead, the exercising animals turned to alcohol with significantly more enthusiasm than the sedentary rats, mainly during the first week of the experiment. “It was a bit of surprise,” Dr. Leasure said.

Fascinating!

These findings actually echo the survey published in the in The American Journal of Health Promotion, which also concluded by polling average Americans that people who exercise more tend to also consume more alcohol.

If you are asking why, however, researchers have yet to come up with a definitive answer. Some speculate it is because of a need to socialize and some say its because of a more “sensation-taking lifestyle.”

But in the end, we guess its better that the drinkers are also runners, joggers and loves of pilates – helps burn off the calories from all those mai tais!