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.
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.
It isn’t advice – it’s a warning.
The Difference is Substantial
A recent studied looked at the time it takes for the stomach to empty when drinking regular drinks and when drinking those with artificial sweeteners.
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.
Isn’t Low Calorie Better?
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.
Dangers of Excessive Drinking
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.
Have you noticed a difference when drinking sugar free versions of your favorite mixed drinks?
Image credit: Kenn Wilson
WTH, 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.
I belong to DAMM (Drunks Against Madd Mothers) and insist you go get drunk, laid, and just have fun! But YOU don’t drive.
Two important medical facts related.
1. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS): A: Glucose fructose maltose dextrose (natural sugars) find a balance of releasing insulin, a protein that bonds to sugars to marker them. Produced in the pancreas. so, they can get into the cells. No insulin no sugar. B: Studies have shown that HFCS causes an excessive release of insulin, as it does not find a balance. So, as insulin goes through the blood stream it finds alcohol (a sugar derivative). Hypothesis: The artificial sugar and alcohol could lead to pancreatic cancer.
2: With the excess of alcohol and HFCS binding to insulin creates an over saturation of eager “sugar”. This sugar forces itself into cells and readily attacks the brain. The brain then attempts to use these “sugars” and will not function efficiently.
Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. -nate
I’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
D
You’re a loser.. why are u commenting on blogs if you are in Vegas
HAHA!! that made my night
If you want more bang for your buck, which I do not recommend, dehydrate before drinking. ie. it may take 4 beers to satisify you when your body is full of water whereas when your body has a lack of fluid, your alcohol will have a greater effect on your blood. In layman’s terms, less water = more alcohol per blood cell.
Sweat before drinking to make your drink more effective.
To Drew:
A shot of vodka (1.5oz is the standard shot glass in the US) is 100 Calories not 70. Almost all alcohol that is 80 proof or 40% alcohol is 100 Calories per 1.5 ounces. If you are drinking 100 proof liquor then bump that up to 125 calories per 1.5 ounce, and Bacardi 151 (151 proof) would have about 150 calories per 1.5 ounces.
Ever try a Carlo Rossi Sangria and Diet 7up with a little real lemon (about a quarter squeezed and dropped in the glass) over ice? 5oz of the alcoholic portion of the beverage is only about 100 calories (that’s all the calories the whole drink has) and it’s actually a pretty good drink. I really like having a drink or two to relax/stop the wheels from turning for a while. I also ride my bike or run daily and am at a pretty healthy weight. I just want to stay there.
All of you people need a life. Stop bickering about calories and realize the fundamental issue is not drinking too much or to often– it is simply people have such a dearth of physical activity that they need to count calories. What a shame to think that our ancestors could drink to a coma and still look thin simply because they did not have processed foods, massive fats, “bad” carbs and they were not losers sitting and texting/blogging all day. My advice is go drink too much and get a life. Wake up and take up a hobby that is physically demanding.
Who cares about DUI offenses. Cops only give people DUI offenses because they have a death wish. I dislike cops who are alive.
I mix diet pop with hard liquor all the time because I’m watching my weight, but now that I know the side effects, I think I’ll stop doing that! Especially when I read that it keeps the liver busy trying to breakdown the alcohol and it inhibits fat burning.
When starting to diet the one thing I did not want to give up was alcohol; I never really drank alcohol on week days, just when going out on the weekend, and then it was for a proper binge, drinking strong mixed drinks with diet coke.
I did not want to give up alcohol altogether as not drinking all but defeats the purpose of going out in the first place. (Nice sub discussion on that coming up probably but this is the way I feel).
So I switched to drinking better drinks (better whiskey primarily) and then drink it straight, with big glasses of water and diet soda on the side.
The result is that one drink lasts me MUCH longer. With a mixed rum & coke it’s just too easy to empty the whole glass in very little time. It’s still enough for the buzz, but the reduction means no more hangovers and reduced calories.
Another thing that alcohol does is giving you munchies.. This is probably worse than the alcohol itself to finish of a night out with some burgers and fries or even just too many sandwiches or anything else that happens to be in the fridge.
To prevent that you also need to eat something with your drinking, preferably something high proteine, but low ‘everything-else’ because your body already has all the fuel it needs from the alcohol.
So I tend to ‘plan’ my drinking days. I eat things like boiled eggs (yolk removed
) or low-fat grilled chicken. Also you absolutely cannot combine a restaurant visit first with drinking after. You can do one or the other, and in my case it’s usually the other. 
(Party! 
)
A 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.
lol me too
Get a life!!!!!!!
Who are these people ? Go out get drunk have fun and obviously dont drive !!!!
Dont cross the street either. Or eat red meat, or play outdoors in the sun, or eat raw cookie dough. Right mom?
Two 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.
wow am going out to get some diet drinks !
You suuuuuuuuuck. Drinking is fun. So fun I’m in Vegas right now…Drinking. I love it. Sucka-fishes.
cutting 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.
nothing speeds up the process of alcohol through the liver, it is a filtering process.
Oh stop – just get drunk however you want. Get up and run the next day if you’re truly feeling bad about the calories
Low carb option: Just drink the vodka straight. Nothing else gets in the way.
I’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.
So, on the days that I feel that I am going to do a little drinking, don’t eat much?
I 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!
You’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
You’d only get a DUI if you were to drive afterwards, I’m pretty sure.
Don’t drink alcohal at all. It damages your liver, and you raise the risk of a DUI offense.
Ever 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.
I am glad I don’t drink. Most of the drinks have so much calories in them.