Young men who report an unstable pattern of alcohol consumption including binge drinking have an elevated risk for experiencing hypomania, study results show. Notably, the effect was independent of total alcohol consumption and the presence of clinical alcohol use disorders.
“This fits with the idea that instability in different biological and behavioral systems is a core feature of risk for hypomania and finally risk for bipolar disorders,” say study authors Thomas Meyer (Newcastle University, UK) and Larissa Wolkenstein (University of Tübingen, Germany) in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry.
Recent studies have suggested that vulnerability to hypomania is related to instability in certain psychologic processes. For example, individuals at risk for hypomania do not generally sleep less than others, but report a much more unstable sleeping pattern. Similarly fluctuations in self-esteem are much more characteristic of vulnerability to hypomania than are consistently low or high levels of self-esteem.
In the current study, the researchers assessed whether alcohol use might show a similar relationship to hypomania. They recruited 120 male students who completed the Hypomanic Personality Scale and were independently interviewed with the FORM 90 to assess alcohol consumption. The latter comprised an interview about a typical weekly drinking pattern and a calendar to assess drinking behavior over the last 90 days, noting special days with unusual drinking behavior.
The researchers found that intra-individual fluctuations in alcohol consumption predicted hypomania after accounting for clinical diagnoses of abuse or dependency. In addition, vulnerability for hypomania was significantly associated with mean standard ethanol content per drinking day.
Discussing their findings, the researchers note a recent theory that bipolar disorder is related to a hypersensitivity to reward-related cues, which is due to a dysregulation of the behavioral activation system.
“To extend this work further, it would be reasonable to look more closely at the motivational and affective processes associated with drinking alcohol and bipolar disorder and how mood and drinking are related,” Meyer and Wolkenstein comment.
Source: MedWire (www.medwire-news.md) 19 March 2010