A COMPARISON OF THE ACUTE EFFECTS OF A LOW-DOSE OF ALCOHOL ON MOOD AND PERFORMANCE OF HEALTHY-VOLUNTEERS AND SUBJECTS WITH UPPER RESPIRATORY-TRACT ILLNESSES

An experiment was carried out to determine whether a low dose of alcoh ol produced different behavioural effects in healthy volunteers to tho se suffering from an upper respiratory tract illness. Ninety-nine subj ects were tested, with 48 subjects being assigned to the alcohol condi tion and 51 to the juice only condition. A dose of 1.5 mi of vodka per kg body weight was used and the alcohol manipulation was double-blind . Approximately half of the subjects in each condition were healthy an d the others had upper respiratory tract illnesses, probably colds. Su bjects with colds reported an increase in negative affect and were slo wer at performing psychomotor tasks. Few main effects of alcohol were obtained. Of major interest were the interactions between health statu s and alcohol conditions. The alcohol improved the mood of healthy sub jects but produced greater negative moods in subjects with colds. Simi larly, performance of selective and sustained attention tasks showed d ifferent effects of alcohol in healthy and ill subjects.