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Photo source: Pixabay talks about hamsters, and many people should be familiar with them. These small, cute, furry animals with bulging cheeks are loved by many cute pet lovers. When raising hamsters, we usually need to put a small water tank on the cage wall to facilitate the hamsters to drink water. But have you ever thought that we may have misunderstood the real needs or preferences of hamsters-maybe what they want is not insipid water.

A "massive" hamster

For many people, whether it is the Spring Festival, friends get together, or worry alleviation, wine is a common drink. Drinking one or two glasses of wine is not a problem for most people, but if you drink too much, you may have inarticulate speech, dizziness, decreased concentration, stumble walking, or even "drink broken tablets." in serious cases, respiratory and heart failure, stroke, coma and even death may occur.

Photo: Pixabay, however, your hamster may not have to worry about this-many studies have found that soft and cute hamsters can be said to be the "strongest king" when it comes to drinking. In 1979, a study of Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) found that if they were given 12%, or 12 degrees, of ethanol, they consumed an average of more than 15 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. Another study got similar results: hamsters consumed an average of 17.9 grams per kilogram of ethanol per day if they were given both water and the right amount of ethanol.

What kind of concept is this? If a person weighing 70 kilograms has the same amount of alcohol, it is equivalent to consuming at least 1.33 litres (1.05 kilograms) of pure ethanol a day, which is equivalent to drinking 3.3 liters of 40 degrees of alcohol a day. But in fact, although individuals vary greatly, under normal circumstances, an average person of the same weight can metabolize only 170 grams of ethanol per day, which is roughly equivalent to 2.5 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.

Photo: Pixabay hamsters not only drink a lot, but also like to drink, even to the extent that they prefer water to water. In the 1979 study, the amount of alcohol that hamsters consumed every day was the result of their free choice of food, water or ethanol solution, and no one forced them to "drink." The scientists found that ethanol accounted for at most more than 90% of the total amount of liquid consumed by hamsters in a day, while only about 10% of the water they drank directly. Moreover, they seem to prefer higher-degree "wines" to "low-alcohol" wines with only a slightly alcoholic flavor. When the alcohol content gradually increased from 1 degree to nearly 10 degrees, the proportion of hamsters drinking ethanol solution became higher and higher.

By contrast, rats (Rattus norvegicus), who are also rodents, prefer to drink about 3 degrees, although they also have a certain amount of alcohol. When the degree is higher and higher, the rats will gradually become almost do not drink, basically only drink water. Moreover, rats are much less likely to drink alcohol than hamsters. Another study in 1979 found that if ethanol was gradually added to a sugary solution to make a mixed drink, rats consumed no more than 9.3 grams of ethanol per kilogram of body weight per day, about half as much as hamsters.

Photo: Roborovski siskokset / Tiia Heinonen / Flickr;License:CC BY 2.0, but for hamsters, it's not just wine. If they are given some high-calorie drinks, such as tomato juice, peach juice and chocolate drinks, their alcohol consumption will decrease. The most obvious are chocolate drinks, which cut their ethanol intake by more than half. So some scientists believe that hamsters like to drink in part to get energy. After all, the calorific value of ethanol (the amount of heat released when a certain food is oxidized or burned in vitro) is as high as 7 kcal / g, which is much higher than that of carbohydrates and protein (about 4 kcal / g). Close to the calorific price of fat (about 9 kcal / g).

Hamsters who can't drink a thousand cups, you might think, although hamsters drink a lot, will they become confused, rickety "drunk rats" like alcoholics? In fact, they don't seem to have to worry about it.

For example, a scientist once brought in another kind of hamster, the hairy foot rat (Phodopus campbelli), to see how much alcohol could "get them drunk". The hamsters were given a series of different concentrations of ethanol and scored with a "swing scale" (Wobbling Scale) to assess how severe the symptoms of alcoholism were by the extent of gait disorders. The range of scores on the scale is 0-4. The higher the score, the more affected the motor. For example, 0 means "you can't see your body shaking", 1 means "your body will sway when you stand or move, but you won't fall down". And 4 means "will fall to one side and cannot return to normal posture".

Photo Source: Pixabay results scientists were surprised to find that they could not get these hamsters "drunk". Even though the dose of ethanol reached 7.5 grams per kilogram of body weight, the hamster was safe and sound after drinking it, with a score of no more than 0.5. Although this dose seems to be less than half of the hamster's "alcohol capacity" (15g / kg body weight / day) mentioned earlier, it is important to note that this is not consumed by hamsters in a single day, in terms of short-term intake, this dose may already be quite high. And human beings have to be outdone again in this project. Studies have found that after oral administration of 0.8 g / kg body weight of ethanol, people's ability to coordinate their limbs has been affected, and the probability of a car crash increases when completing a simulated driving task.

Why can hamsters drink so much? After a glass of wine, the ethanol begins the journey of roaming and "rebirth" in the human body. Ethanol itself is a toxic substance that can cause protein denaturation, and alcohol antivirus is used for this reason. As a small molecule, ethanol can easily spread through the biofilm structure and be absorbed by the human body, which has many effects on the human body, such as acute toxicity to the central nervous system. This is because ethanol can strongly bind to the receptor of the main inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA in the central nervous system, activate a series of neuroinhibitory responses, play a sedative effect, and cause cognitive dysfunction and decreased limb coordination, so people are easy to talk nonsense and walk askew after drinking.

Our bodies have a certain "anti-alcoholic" ability. Ethanol dehydrogenase can oxidize ethanol to acetaldehyde, which is the main tool for metabolizing ethanol. However, acetaldehyde is a chemically active substance that can form adducts (adduct) with hemoglobin, albumin and other proteins, inhibit protein function, react with nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids and other substances, and trigger immune responses of the body. After drinking, blushing, nausea, heart rate increased, but also because of acetaldehyde. Therefore, our bodies also prepare acetaldehyde dehydrogenase to further oxidize acetaldehyde to acetic acid. The oxidation of ethanol and acetaldehyde is mainly done in the liver. Subsequently, the generated acetic acid leaves the liver and is converted into acetyl-CoA in various tissues, which is particularly important for the metabolism of the three major nutrients.

The basic mechanism of ethanol metabolism. (photo source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc / articles / PMC3484320/) therefore, the "working ability", or activity, of ethanol dehydrogenase and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase is critical to "relieving alcohol", which is an important reason for the great "alcohol capacity" of hamsters. Scientists have found that the ethanol metabolism rate of Syrian hamster hepatocytes per unit weight is nearly twice that of rats, and the activity of ethanol dehydrogenase is about 2 × 3 higher than that of rats. In another study, the scientists compared the total acetaldehyde oxidation power of Syrian hamster, rat and human liver tissue and found that the hamster "hanged" the other two contestants: the hamster had a total acetaldehyde oxidation power of 3.5 micromoles per gram of liver tissue, compared with 0.64 in rats and 0.45 in humans.

If you want to fill your stomach, practice your drinking first? I wonder if you are curious about how ordinary hamsters have such a strong ability to metabolize ethanol. Does this mean anything to them?

You may have noticed that sometimes the cheeks of hamsters bulge like a big bag. Hamsters have a cheek pouch structure in their mouth that temporarily stores and transports food to help them store food (hoarding). Species such as Syrian hamsters and Rattus campestris live in arid areas and often need to travel long distances to collect food and transport it back to the burrow to store it for a rainy day and survive the harsh winter.

Photo Source: after long-term storage of Pixabay, food may ferment to produce ethanol. For example, the seed of ryegrass (Leymus condensatus) is one of the main foods of Rattus campestris. Scientists have found that the suspension of ryegrass seeds can naturally ferment to produce ethanol after a day. So, perhaps in order not to waste fermented food, hamsters have evolved a strong ability to metabolize ethanol.

This situation of "drinking" because of food does not exist only in hamsters. In the dense rainforest of western Malaysia, pen-tailed tree shrews (Ptilocercus lowii), bee monkeys (Nycticebus coucang), plantain squirrels (Callosciurus notatus) and several kinds of mice all feed on the nectar of a palm tree (Eugeissona tristis), which can contain up to 3.8% ethanol, which can be said to be a real jade syrup. It is estimated that according to human alcoholism intake standards, pen-tailed tree shrews may have an average of one day of alcoholism every three days, but in fact they may have evolved a unique antialcoholic mechanism. keep the concentration of ethanol in the blood and brain at a low level.

Pen tail tree shrew. (photo source: Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1848, Mamm. Pl. 2 / Joseph Wolf / Wikimedia Commons) our ancestors may have experienced similar stories. In the wilderness, fruit that falls from trees and ferments can contain as much as 8.1% ethanol, which apes often feed on. About 1000 million years ago, the gene of ethanol dehydrogenase 4 in our ancestors mutated, and the alanine at position 294 of the enzyme became valine, which increased the efficiency of ethanol metabolism of this enzyme by 40 times. And this is about exactly when our ancestors went to the ground from the trees, and this mutation may have given them a great advantage in adapting to life on the ground, and let "wine" be engraved into our ancestors' DNA in a sense long before all human civilization originated.

Although scientists have discovered some of the secrets of hamster ethanol metabolism, ethanol metabolism and its effects on the body are very complex questions that have not been fully answered even in humans.

As far as this article is concerned, the remaining question is: are hamsters really not drunk? Not necessarily, but it may have to be done in a different way. In the study of Campbell's foot rats, scientists also did another experiment: injecting ethanol solution directly into the peritoneum of hamsters. The ethanol injected into the body no longer needs to be tested by the digestive tract and liver, but can circulate directly into the blood and lymph to the whole body. This time, the hamster soon got drunk.

Warm reminder: please drink moderately, don't drink too much, and don't try to drink your hamster easily.

Reference link:

Https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/alcohol-consumption-hamster-drunk/621125/

Https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484320/

Https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa72/aa72.htm

Https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9384(95)00026-f

Https://doi.org/10.1016/0091-3057(79)90121-7

Https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037663571500056X

Https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0070https://www.pnas.org/content/105/30/10426

Https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/toxicity-of-ethanol

Https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557381/

Https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.94.5.1675

Https://www.pnas.org/content/112/2/458

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: global Science (ID:huanqiukexue), written by Li Shiyuan, revision: Erqi

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