Students who use Ecstasy may put themselves in even more danger if they add alcohol into the mix, according to research by a Penn State professor.

Byron Jones, professor of biobehavioral health and pharmacology, and Jean-Christophe Cassel of Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, studied the effects of combining alcohol with Ecstasy, or methylenedioxymeth-amphetamine (MDMA).

"MDMA's primary toxic effect is hyperthermia," Jones said. "It also impairs brain chemistry -- serotonin and possibly dopamine."

Besides increased depression and anxiety, the body becomes hyperthermic, which means the body temperature rises to unhealthy levels at which the proteins in cell membranes of the body begin to unwind or change shape.

"The body is literally cooking," Jones said.

Alcohol, on the other hand, disrupts the way the body regulates temperature, he said.

"Essentially, alcohol alone turns the circulatory system into that of a lizard," Jones said.

MDMA is a psychoactive drug that chemically alters serotonin levels in the brain, said Nadine Mastroleo, Alcohol Intervention Program coordinator for the Office of Health Promotion and Education.

Serotonin regulates mood, aggression and sleep, along with other functions, she said.

The biggest dangers come from mixing drugs, because you can't be sure of the reaction, Mastroleo said.

When a person combines Ecstasy with alcohol, the body becomes poikilothermic, Jones said, meaning that the body temperature adjusts with its surroundings.

The effect that the two drugs had on motor activity and body heat in their research was unexpected, Jones said.

Motor activity in the body skyrocketed, while the effect on body temperature was altered, he said.

The change in body temperature adjusted with that of the ambient temperature of the surroundings, Jones said. So, if the room temperature was low, there was not a dangerous increase in body temperature.

However, this protection only exists the first time the combination is taken, Jones said.

"A short-term tolerance appears," he said. By the next day, the original stabilizing effect on the body temperature disappears, showing a rise similar to that of Ecstasy alone, he added.

"The first dose of MDMA will cause the body temperature to rise," Jones said, and "the first time, alcohol may protect the body, but the second time, there is no such luck."

People may be more or less sensitive to the combination due to their genetic makeup, Jones said.

"The first time [someone] takes a psychedelic drug, it's a crapshoot on how [he or she] will react," he said.

Mastroleo said, "You won't know how the body will react each time."

Students should be greatly concerned about the reactions their bodies' will have to different drugs, Jones said.

"Deaths are relatively rare but they can happen, and this is how we think they unfold," he said.

Mastroleo said that use of Ecstasy has dropped nationally. However, this could be because it is being replaced by other substances.

Here at Penn State, heroin and crystal meth are the drugs that are of major concern, Mastroleo said.

While Ecstasy is not the most widely used drug on the market, there is still some student use. According to the October 2002 Pulse Survey on Student Drug Use, about 5 percent of the students polled reported using some type of club drug, such as Ecstasy and ketamine.

The initial study by Jones and Cassel involved giving repeated doses of only MDMA to hooded rats every two hours.

"After the first dose, females were more active than males," Jones said. "But after the second dose, males were much more active than the females."

When it came time to give the third dose, all of the males and three of the females had died, he said.

On the second try, they decreased the dose, but still ran into the same effect. Two males died, along with one female, he said. However, they were able to study the neurochemistry of the rats because enough of the test population had survived.

Both males and females showed a decrease in serotonin functions, which are important in depression and anxiety cases, Jones said.

"In humans, males are more likely to have trouble [with MDMA] than females," Jones said.

This effect can be seen in articles in clinical journals that are based on data obtained from hospitals -- specifically one British hospital showing a four-to-one difference in males to females that are admitted for problems with MDMA, Jones said.