Diet Alcohol Warning: Get Drunk Quickly
If getting drunk the normal way wasn't easy enough, a new study says alcoholic drinks combined with artificial sweeteners make you drunk even quicker.
It isn't advice - it's a warning.
The difference is substantial:
The stomach had emptied half of its contents in 15.3 minutes after the diet drink and 21.1 minutes with the sugar-sweetened drink. The peak blood alcohol concentration was significantly higher with the diet drink than with the regular drink. The blood alcohol concentration was also higher with the artificial sweetener than with the sugar-sweetened drink.
And this doesn't just apply to pre-made drinks. You could be combining alcohol with diet coke or tonic water - such as a sugar-free Red Bull and vodka.
The research (conducted at Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia) also raises interesting questions about sugar versus artificial sweeteners. The sugar-free versions may be much lower in calories, but they are entering the digestive system far more quickly.
Who knows what effect this might have on weight gain or loss? Of course it's an oxymoron - because alcohol keeps the liver very busy - no fat-burning can occur anyway - not to mention the diuretic effect.
According to the Health Services at Brown University, consuming alcohol quickly - like doing shots - can keep high blood concentrations of alcohol for hours after drinking:
Alcohol is metabolized by the liver, where enzymes break down the alcohol. Understanding the rate of metabolism is critical to understanding the effects of alcohol. In general, the liver can process one ounce of liquor (or one standard drink) in one hour. If you consume more than this, your system becomes saturated, and the additional alcohol will accumulate in the blood and body tissues until it can be metabolized. This is why having a lot of shots or playing drinking games can result in high blood alcohol concentrations that last for several hours.
And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns liver disease, alcohol poisoning, neurological damage, sexual dysfunction, and unintentional injuries are all risks of excessive drinking.
Image credit: Kenn Wilson
Read More
- Hemp: Power Food or Just for Smoking? (Diet Blog)
- Concerned About Mercury in Fish and Flu Shots? (Diet Blog)
- Meet Greg, 155 Pounds Down! (DailySpark)
- 2012 Super Bowl Commercial Winners: Oikos and Belvita [VIDEOS] (Diets in Review)
33 Comments
Add Your Comment
Created / Updated: November 9, 2011
I am glad I don't drink. Most of the drinks have so much calories in them.
ReplyGet a life!!!!!!!
ReplyHAHA!! that made my night
ReplyEver heard the slogan for Bacardi and Diet Coke? "It gets the job done". That's about right, I suppose. I mix vodka or hard liquor with diet drinks so that I can get a buzz without so many calories. I only usually put an ounce or ounce and a half of liquor to a 12 oz soda and I get a nice little buzz off of it.
ReplyDon't drink alcohal at all. It damages your liver, and you raise the risk of a DUI offense.
ReplyDont cross the street either. Or eat red meat, or play outdoors in the sun, or eat raw cookie dough. Right mom?
ReplyWho are these people ? Go out get drunk have fun and obviously dont drive !!!!
ReplyWho cares about DUI offenses. Cops only give people DUI offenses because they have a death wish. I dislike cops who are alive.
ReplyI'm pretty sure you know alcohol is more dangerous to the body than cookie dough
I'm gunna hazard a guess that you're smart enough to be aware that drinking a lot of alcohol is kind of worse than the things you listed. It's not mumsy to avoid health risks that affect you in the long term. I wish I could do that, but I don't really care about my body enough to have absolutely no alcohol
ReplyD
I belong to DAMM (Drunks Against Madd Mothers) and insist you go get drunk, laid, and just have fun! But YOU don't drive.
ReplyYou'd only get a DUI if you were to drive afterwards, I'm pretty sure.
ReplyYou'd also have a pretty low risk of getting a DUI if you didn't drink.
I wonder if this means that the alcohol is processed faster, since it's absorbed faster. In other words, I wonder if that rule of thumb of 1 hour per drink is shortened to say 45 minutes if you're using artificial sweeteners.
So, theoretically, to keep from getting drunk too fast, if you're drinking an alcoholic beverage with artificial sweeteners, you'd have to eat more snacks to absorb some of the alcohol and slow down the digestion process - meaning your snacks would eliminate the benefits of the artificial sweeteners?
Boy, though, I know a fun weekend with my family and a few too many Margarita's really threw my diet off track anyway. For all sorts of reasons, avoiding alcohol while dieting sounds like the best advice.
-Danielle
Replynothing speeds up the process of alcohol through the liver, it is a filtering process.
ReplyI agree with Spectra. Sometimes it's nice to get that little buzz, and mixed drinks with regular pop or juice or mixers can be really high in calories!
I try to only drink calories if I'm drinking 1) milk 2) a little bit of wine or 3) something like SF Red Bull with 5-10 calories per can.
Don't drink, or don't drink and drive, and you won't get a DWI! Brilliant! :P
ReplySo, on the days that I feel that I am going to do a little drinking, don't eat much?
ReplyI've known about this for quite some time (even before looking at this article). Found through trial and error on accident, I noticed one night that I got substationally more intoxicated off of the same amount of alcohol but the only difference is I was chasing with a diet Coke instead of a regular Coke that I had used the night before. Granted, how full or empty your stomach is also plays a key role in this but it didn't effect me THAT much.
I didn't know it was an actual scientific based fact though (lol), I just thought it was one of those unanswered questions in life. I've been using diet drinks to chase/mix my drinks with for the past few months now. Seeing this article, I now have some justification on my reasoning.
ReplyLow carb option: Just drink the vodka straight. Nothing else gets in the way.
ReplyOh stop - just get drunk however you want. Get up and run the next day if you're truly feeling bad about the calories
Replycutting off a limb will also help you loose weight, but it is rather radical.
I agree with Wally -- live your life and pay the price by being active and by using moderation.
ReplyYou suuuuuuuuuck. Drinking is fun. So fun I'm in Vegas right now...Drinking. I love it. Sucka-fishes.
ReplyYou're a loser.. why are u commenting on blogs if you are in Vegas
ReplyWTH, Vegas is for fun, this girl is having a good time like MILLONS upon millions who visit Vegas every year. get over your pious self.
Replywow am going out to get some diet drinks !
Replylol me too
ReplyTwo shots of vodka straight; good for the night. Vodka, diet cola, and lime wedge, very nice.
Vodka is the purest hard alcohol, 40% proof, low calorie.
ReplyA shot of vodka is 70 calories, mix it with any diet soda or tonic and you can easily get away with drinking on a diet.
Also, alcohol is burned fastest by the body, before fat, protein, carbs, or anything else. Which is why people always say alcohol hampers diets. However, once you drink it, then process it, you go back to burning fats, so it only "postpones" the fat burning process. Then again if you're consuming less calories than you need anyway on your diet, it really won't have that many horrible effects, especially if you're drinking it at night shortly before going to sleep, then exercising the next day.
Reply