Good day to everyone! So, the weekend is arriving! It means that many of our readers will meet with their friends, go to restaurants, pubs, and cocktail bars where of course they are going to drink alcoholic drinks. So, we have decided to ask our expert a very actual and practical question – how may one determine a harmless dose of alcohol?
Leonid Livshits: This is a very interesting and important question. Everyone well knows two main methods that forensic medicine uses as a metric of alcohol intoxication in many countries: (a) measuring the concentration of alcohol in expired air (BrAC) and (b) measuring the concentration of alcohol in the blood (BAC). BrAC is usually measured in the so-called field conditions using mobile breathalyzers; in its turn, the measurement of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) requires special laboratory tools. For those who want to read more about BAC method, I strongly recommend reading the article of Searle (Searle J. Alcohol calculations and their uncertainty. Med Sci Law. 2015 Jan; 55 (1): 58-64.) But, I repeat, both of these methods require either special devices or special skills, and therefore it is impossible to use them at home.
Of course, you can follow the advice of Wikipedia, visit the Internet site for pilots (http://flightphysical.com/pilot/alcohol.htm) and compare your reaction with the physiological and psychological effects of different blood alcohol concentrations. As an alternative, you can use the curious classification of the medieval Syrian scientist Gregory Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286), who divided the drinkers into four categories in accordance to his association with different animals: “At first, a person becomes like a peacock – he puffs, his movements are smooth and majestic. Then he takes on the character of a monkey and begins to joke and flirt with everyone. Then he becomes like a lion – he is arrogant, proud, and confident in his strength. Finally, he turns into a pig and wallows in the mud.”
Pigs, Chilton Foliat Wallowing on the northern slope of the Kennet valley midway between Chilton Foliat and Ramsbury. Author: Andrew Smith. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
I want to share with you an absolutely wonderful experiment that was conducted more than a hundred years ago (in 1903) by the Russian physiologist Nikolai Volovich. I should point out that I have not succeed to find the original version of this article, and here I cite these results from a few historical publications.
So, aiming to clarify the physiological changes occurring during alcohol consumption, Volovich correlated the alcohol dose (consumed by the healthy male adults) and the number of pulse beats within 24 hours (in the control group, the subjects drank the same amount of water). As well, these subjects were starving during these 24 hours. The results were as following: 20 ml of 96% alcohol did not give almost any changes, the pulse increased by only 10-15 beats (for whole period) or did not change at all. Drinking 30 ml of alcohol caused an increase of 430 beats more than usual; 60 ml – 1,872 beats more; 120 ml – 12,980 beats; 180 ml – 23,904 beats more, and 240 ml – 25,488 beats more during following 24 hours.
These data leads further conclusion: consumption of 20 ml alcohol causes no negative changes, whereas 30 ml is already in the dangerous border. All dose above 60 ml is already harmful, and above 100 ml of alcohol is simply dangerous – because this means an increase of 10-12 thousand (!) beats more than normal.
In other words, the heart rate (and body function) of the drunken subject is under increased stress at least 24 hours after alcohol consumption.
It is clear that the reaction of each person is individual, but, in any case, the results of the experiment are very indicative. Not everyone is able to control themselves in such a situation, even in view of physical reasons.
Having this information, everyone (of course, in sober condition) can calculate his/her strengths. For our readers, we suggest a question for discussion: what methods may you propose to determine your maximal dose of alcohol consumption?
Featured image by bridgesward from Pixabay