[HN Gopher] A lesser known mechanism for alcohol tolerance ___________________________________________________________________ A lesser known mechanism for alcohol tolerance Author : klevertree Score : 153 points Date : 2021-10-07 16:38 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (trevorklee.com) (TXT) w3m dump (trevorklee.com) | [deleted] | [deleted] | JoeAltmaier wrote: | How about: folks who are drunk, just _think_ they have a high | tolerance and are functional. | shakezula wrote: | There are objective and measurable differences between | tolerances that this post points out, though. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | Hm, I thought I looked for them and didn't find them. | | Reading again, yup nothing there. Just some generalities. | lloydgrossman wrote: | I guess everything is a generality if you believe hard | enough. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | That's an ungenerous remark, and un-called for. If there | are measures in the article, then please post them. | Otherwise lighten up, and cease the ad-hominem attacks. | drewbitt wrote: | Yes, but also no. Through practice alone you do get better at | activities while drunk, like walking or driving, but I can | assure you that what two drinks did to me when I never drank vs | what they do now is entirely different. My rationality stays | the same now. Note that the high alcohol content will catch up | to you later (you're still dehydrated), but in the moment | alcoholics are an entirely different breed a couple drinks in. | If you ever hang out with people who drink regularly and those | who don't, you'll quickly see the difference. | 123pie123 wrote: | Not sure which I fall into - maybe both | | but I very rarely get a hangover (yes this does encourage/ allow | school night drinking - inc now) | | I have to drink either red wine or over 8 (uk - 568ml) pints of | 5%abv lager to start to get fraction of a hangover the next day | (starting at a slight thick head level) | | incedently for me, eating stuff with sugar and alchol = major | acid reflux this took ages to figure out why sometime I was | throwing up in the middle of the night (no other symtoms) | | another thing that is fairly obivious to me now is how | proportional the effect is of the amount of food eaten before | drinking and the speed of which you get drunk. This can be used | to great effect for big drinking days (eg stag do) | | I could easily drink all day comsuming > 15 (uk - 568ml, 5% abv) | pints if I keep a level of food in my stomache | tk75x wrote: | I am guessing you are less than 30 years old? give it 5-10 | years and it'll be much more painful after a heavy night of | drinking. sugar and alcohol are both metabolized by the liver, | and large amounts of both/either will make you feel poorly. age | and frequent use of alcohol and junk food will just wear your | body out sooner. the feeling of being drunk is most noticeable | when your blood alcohol content is rising, aka when you drink | quickly on an empty stomach. but you can have a nice buzz going | all day with proper planning and eating beforehand. | | I realize after typing this out it sounds a bit preachy, but | take it as a caution from someone who felt invincible in their | 20s | 123pie123 wrote: | nope - well over 50 | | because I understand how my body works with alcohol, I can | now manage my alcohol better (with food/ sugar) I can drink | very much more now | | forgot to mention - I ALWAYS have one month off drinking (typ | January) | | and Oktoberfest is the best place in the world - make sure | you dress up properly though | [deleted] | oaktrout wrote: | The author seems confused about how BK channels relate to | tolerance, here he notes that decreased BK channels lead to | increased tolerance: "Exposure to alcohol upregulates microRNA | (mir-9), which in turn modifies BK mRNA, selectively | destabilizing certain types of BK mRNA." | | Then later he seems to be stating that decreased BK channels | would lead to decreased tolerance: "The consequence of this would | then be that the development of alcohol tolerance could be slowed | or halted by preventing the modification of BK channels, like by | using RNAi to degrade certain types of BK mRNA." | | Perhaps he meant "by using RNAi to degrade mir-9". Ignoring the | above issues, it seems very hand wavy to say "let's just get this | RNA interfering drug into your brain and target this specific BK | RNA". | atourgates wrote: | I just want to point out the amazing amount of alcohol you'd have | to ingest in a short time to get to the 1% BAC referenced in this | article. | | Obviously there are lots of variables based on your size and | individual physiology, but on average, each drink raises your BAC | somewhere around .02%. | | So, even without accounting for an enlarged liver that processed | alcohol more quickly, that driver with a 1% BAC in South Africa | must have had around 50 drinks in quick succession, then gotten | behind the wheel. | | Even if you were drinking liquor, that's basically downing two | bottles of whisky in under an hour. | | Plenty to kill the average person, but apparently not enough to | keep this driver from getting behind the wheel. | | Wild. | dexwiz wrote: | You have never seen an alcoholic chug liquor like its water I | take it? Long term alcoholics, talking decades+ here not | youthful overindulgence, become incredibly tolerant and can | consume huge amounts in ways that would make a normal person | wretch. These are people who have altered their body chemistry | enough that withdrawal is deadly. | thebean11 wrote: | Two bottles in an hour though? I was under the impression | that the most hardcore alcoholics consumed that much in a | _day_. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | In the mid 90s, I worked for a grocery store doing full | time, overnight stock to partially pay for college. One of | my co-workers for a period of time, whose name I now | forget, was a barely-functional alcoholic. He would show up | to work on time most days, and work through his shift. At | lunchtime he would disappear for a period of time and he | would come back smelling like Listerine. | | Because that was his lunch. | | A bottle of Listerine. | | During the holidays they shifted some of us to a morning | shift to continue to put items on shelves to match the | holiday demand, and I saw him walk in on his day off, grab | a fifth of bourbon and a fifth of vodka in the cheap | plastic bottles, walk out, and walk back in about an hour | later because he had consumed both bottles in his truck in | the parking lot. He wanted a couple more to bring back to | his apartment. | | And as bad as his drinking was, the reason he had sole | custody of his daughter is because his ex-girlfriend was a | full blown drug addict and he was good at hiding his | drinking from CPS. | zepolen wrote: | I've seen an alcoholic down half a bottle of whiskey for | breakfast. Literally. | jessriedel wrote: | My understanding is that serious alcoholics are drunks for | days at a time. They go to bed with enough alcohol in their | system to be drunk when they wake up, and they keep | drinking throughout the day. Having zero alcohol in their | system can be life threatening. | | That means they can build up to whatever BAC slowly. | MivLives wrote: | I was always told that you eliminate roughly one drink per hour | from your system. So it is possible that they did that feat | over a longer time span. Staying up all night drinking then | hopping in the car seems much more reasonable (at least for how | to achieve that BAC, and not as a decision you should make in | life). | mcguire wrote: | Eliminating alcohol from your system reduces your BAC. One | drink plus one hour _ought_ to give you (fairly close to) a | 0% BAC. | retrac wrote: | It's truly incredible. 0.15% is quite drunk for a typical | person and most can't stand at 0.2%. At > 0.3% people often | require hospitalization. At 1% it's probably over the LD50 for | an alcohol-naive person! Though it seems estimates for that | value are rather fuzzy. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >It's truly incredible. 0.15% is quite drunk for a typical | person and most can't stand at 0.2%. At > 0.3% people often | require hospitalization | | Unless you're using insanely puritanical definitions for | "quite drunk" and "can't stand" this doesn't check out. One | drink is ~0.02 and there's no shortage of college kids will | kill 10+ in an hour with no effect other than becoming drunk | and a headache the next day. | morsch wrote: | College kids who routinely have 10+ drinks in an hour | probably aren't what the GP had in mind when referring to | typical persons. | | Obviously words like typical on the one hand and | puritanical on the other hand are sort of subjective. The | NIH, probably on the more puritanical side, considers more | than 4-5 drinks on one occasion (not per hour!) as binge | drinking[1], or more precisely any drinking that raises BAC | beyond 0.08%. As for typical, some random internet page[2] | claims that on average, male college students have 9 drinks | per week (not per hour!). | | [1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and- | fact-sh... | | [2] https://www.scramsystems.com/blog/2014/02/infographic- | much-c... | retrac wrote: | I'm going by my own experiences. And I don't think I'm | puritanical at all, but I am something of a lightweight | with alcohol admittedly. I am male and I am a half- | recovered alcoholic, for context. | | Around 0.05 I'm tipsy to the point of it being obvious. | Feeling good, effusive. And if I'm smart I'll stop drinking | around here. | | At 0.10 I'm flushed, joyous or melancholic, coordination is | affected, I might slosh my drink on the table, and I'm | going on and maybe making a bit of a fool of myself. I tend | to want to go to bed shortly after. I won't have a bad | hangover if I eat a good meal but yes, that's quite drunk | in my opinion. | | And at like 0.15+, I get very sedated. I tend to pass out | and while it's not a stupor I am hard to rouse. | | Above that is just passed out black-out drunk and I've only | done that a few times thankfully, but I have, so I know | that most of a bottle of 750 ml of 80 proof on an empty | stomach is enough to potentially hospitalize me, and | certainly leave me passed out in a puddle of vomit. | | These numbers being for when I am alcohol naive. Not having | drunk in months. If I have been drinking regularly you | could easily double or triple the numbers. Most people do | not have alcohol tolerance though, which is why I assumed | an alcohol-naive drinker. | spicybright wrote: | I've been a pretty bad alcoholic the past few years. I'm | young though. And I'm fairly heavy set too. | | My "high score" on a breathalyzer is 0.4%, and that was | black out barfey drunk for me. | | When in college, NO ONE I knew was able to reach even close | to that. If you treat it like a math problem, sure, 1 drink | = 0.02. | | But in reality, when you can't walk, your body vomits a lot | of it out, and friends stop you from drinking, etc. A | college aged person without much tolerance can almost never | reach that level. | | In my AA, no one has gotten close to that. .6 at the most | at their worst. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | I'm no saying .4 is realistically attainable with any | regularity. I'm saying that 0.15-.2 is not a very | exceptional "24hr high score" for anyone who is drinking | to get drunk in said 24hr period. It's basically a | 12-pack over 1.5 hr or a 6-pack and some shots over two, | neither of which are keg stand type crazy levels of | consumption. | | HN gets a massive stick up its ass if you suggest that | there exists a large subset of the population who's | alchohol consumption is not along the lines one high end | beer per week night and two on the weekends. | | I'm not saying that everyone is crushing a 12pack on a | Friday night but to say that people can't stand at .2 is | an equally outlandish generalization in the other | direction. | phonypc wrote: | 12 beers over a night is one thing, in 1.5 hours is | another. A beer every 7.5 minutes? Just the volume of | liquid would leave me uncomfortable. | | I have no doubt it happens with some regularity, but | that's gotta be a least somewhat noteworthy. | allturtles wrote: | Even among binge-drinking college students, 10 drinks an | hour is exceptional. | | We used to play a game in college where you would drink 1 | shot of beer per minute (so 90 oz of beer, or 7.5 cans of | beer in an hour), and few people could make it past 30 | minutes. | | Source: was a binge-drinking college student. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | You're talking about a power hour. Pretty much everyone | makes the hour. Nobody drops out after 30min unless | they've been pregaming. Yes it gets you pretty drunk but | many people continue drinking afterwards. The alcoholics | do it with wine. | | Pretty much everyone I hung out with in college were | weekend only drinkers, not exactly the hard drinking | crowd. | | If people were regularly puking at the end it wouldn't be | a popular game, just like if a 6-pack weren't a common | amount to consume it wouldn't be a typical unit of sale. | caddemon wrote: | Power hours can definitely get you utterly trashed, but I | think a big reason people would stop/slow down half way | through those is that it's a bit physically | uncomfortable. I don't think I could do a power hour with | non-alcoholic beer right now if you paid me. I agree 10 | drinks an hour is super rare though. Just saying if I | absolutely had to do that for some reason I'd go with | vodka not beer. | silexia wrote: | 90 oz of vodka? You must mean 10 shots of vodka, not the | other way I read it. | bandyaboot wrote: | Binge drinking college students aren't "typical [people]" | erikstarck wrote: | Andre the Giant level of consumption. | spicybright wrote: | Maybe even 2 Andres. 1% is insane. | MaximumYComb wrote: | About 10 years ago I called an ambulance for a friend at a | party. Everyone had said just to get a taxi for him, so I did. | When the taxi arrived I realised I couldn't put him in it and | called an ambulance instead. | | He had seizures on the way to the hosptial, and was blood | tested at 0.7% BAC. He woke up 12 hours later and was still | 0.2% BAC (which is really drunk). | vorpalhex wrote: | Good on you for recognizing it as an emergency and responding | appropriately. | silexia wrote: | I had a similar situation in a college dorm at age 18. My | friend didn't want to get in trouble so just tried to | babysit me. I had severe alcohol poisoning and was sick for | days. I am still good friends with that guy, but have | realized I need to say no to him quite a bit. | taternuts wrote: | Honestly if you are in America, he _might_ have done you | a favor as the emergency ride to the hospital costs about | 5k (not great for college students), let alone the | medical bill. It's always better safe than sorry though. | markdown wrote: | That's insane. Does the St. John Ambulance Brigade not | operate in the US? T hey provide free services in many | countries and have for decades. | | Perhaps the third world needs to send an aid mission to | the US. | | https://www.stjohninternational.org/ | bandyaboot wrote: | Part of it likely has to do with the fact that alcoholics' | livers are often dysfunctional, so the .02% average wouldn't | necessarily apply to the types of people who can reach 1% BAC. | nkozyra wrote: | The logistics of that got me thinking if there was perhaps | instrumentation errors that led to that BAC number. It seems | implausible, and not data-centric enough to hang your hat on in | a blog post like this. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Depending on the incentive situation instrumentation errors | may be the norm and not the exception. The NJ state police | got in trouble for that in the past few years. If the | calibration error isn't linear and someone shows up blowing a | high number you could get a medically insane number on the | screen. | cromulent wrote: | Some of these are interesting: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#Highest_... | | I think anyone who has played with a personal breath test | device knows that you can get false readings quite easily, but | blood tests are something else altogether. | RandallBrown wrote: | I have a police officer friend and even his breathalyzer | gives pretty dramatically different readings. | aerostable_slug wrote: | The unspoken secret to DUI defense: pay $10k for an expert | witness to show up and demand access to the breathalyzer's | source code and pertinent documentation. The vendor will | refuse and the case will be thrown out. | | Nobody wants to talk about the (in)accuracy of | breathalyzers. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >Nobody wants to talk about the (in)accuracy of | breathalyzers. | | That's because like every other bit of tech used to | convict people it's designed to err on the side of | convicting people not being accurate. | | If you want a laugh look up the sensors they use in the | alcohol ankle bracelets. Then look up the OEM specs, | calibration requirements, usage environment requirements | and accuracy claims by the vendors and try and reconcile | the two (several research papers have been written about | this). The whole industry is lousy. | outworlder wrote: | > The vendor will refuse and the case will be thrown out. | | I'm skeptical that a case would be thrown out that | easily. I have seen expert witnesses getting chewed by | the prosecution on minor details. So what if the source | is unavailable. It can be argued that the device is | tested and regularly calibrated, and that any | inaccuracies found will be minor - and certainly not | enough to exonerate the defendant. | | Yeah maybe there might be some inaccuracy - but then the | defendant failed the standardized field sobriety tests. | And the cop is saying that they were visibly drunk. Now | what? | aerostable_slug wrote: | > Yeah maybe there might be some inaccuracy - but then | the defendant failed the standardized field sobriety | tests. And the cop is saying that they were visibly | drunk. Now what? | | You pay to have a medical expert come in and explain the | myriad conditions that can lead to failing the field | sobriety tests. It's simply a question of funding. Even | if the case isn't dropped the jury will almost certainly | have reasonable doubt. | | This is partially why, at least in California, major | parts of the penalties for DUI are "administrative" in | nature and handled by the DMV. | | Even if you do get acquitted in criminal court, it's | another set of hearings to get your license back ($$$), | lose the special "I got a DUI" SR-22 insurance | requirement, etc. | sva_ wrote: | > In 2004, an unidentified Taiwanese woman died of alcohol | intoxication after immersion for twelve hours in a bathtub | filled with 40% ethanol. Her blood alcohol content was 1.35%. | It was believed that she had immersed herself as a response | to the SARS epidemic. | | Bizarre | Chris2048 wrote: | IF she wanted to clean her skin, Why on earth would she | bathe for more than 10 mins?! It must have burned! | boogies wrote: | Perhaps the fumes made her too drunk to leave? Is that | possible? | giantg2 wrote: | I'd imagine the fumes were quite bad too. Inhalation can be | a different beast when it comes to alcohol. | sp332 wrote: | I thought of the fumes too. Clinical studies show that | alcohol doesn't absorb well through skin. e.g. | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2596158/ | | _the wrappings were subsequently soaked with 200 ml of | 95% (v /v) ethanol. Although the ethanol-soaked cotton | was kept covering the skin with rubber sheeting and | adhesive tapes for 4-9 hours, no ethanol was measurable | in the blood._ | satellite2 wrote: | Some also probably entered the bloodstream via the colon | / genitals. | giantg2 wrote: | Interesting. I didn't realize it was that bad at | absorption. | foolfoolz wrote: | 0.02% BAC per drink is wildly underestimated. many people will | reach the driving limit of .08 after 2 drinks | | there's a chart on this dmv page that shows you have to be | 240lbs to get .02 per drink | | https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-han... | slaymaker1907 wrote: | It seems like this isn't the most precise chart which I think | is likely in order to avoid underestimating intoxication. | | https://www.businessinsider.com/drinks-before-driving-if- | bac... has me at 0.13 after 5 drinks versus 0.21 according to | the CA chart. This is an astromical difference that I implies | at least one source is lying via statistics. | giantg2 wrote: | Considering the rate of obesity, .02 per drink might be more | common than one would think. That said, people should | calculate it for themselves than use rules of thumb. | | I'm not convinced of the values in that table. I think they | are being very conservative. My calculations using a BAC | formula are different. For example, the .02 per drink seems | to work for men weighing 215lbs. | vkou wrote: | Do note: | | There's a lot of beer these days that's >5% alcohol, so a | single beer often has more than one drink. | 0des wrote: | I had to check wikipedia and I am very much dismay to | report that it appears they're discontinuing what some | may consider to be the topmost of high gravity malt | liquor, 211 Steel Reserve Triple Export (a segment of 211 | Steel Reserve) | | RIP, you were taken from us too soon. | giantg2 wrote: | Yeah. Standard drinks are 1.5oz 80 proof, 12 oz 5% beer, | or 5oz 12% wine. | ksdale wrote: | Whenever I've looked at the BAC chart and compared it to my | drinking, I discover that I would be _incredibly_ | uncomfortable driving while anywhere near .08 BAC, so I | always assumed it was underestimated somehow... or else | people are allowed to be way drunker and still drive than | seems safe. | yibg wrote: | I think it's the latter. I've tried a few times with a | breathalyzer (that I got off of amazon for pretty cheap, so | no guarantee on accuracy. Although it was consistent) while | drinking and I was pretty shocked at how drunk I felt while | still being under 0.08. I always assumed the safe limit | would be a beer or 2, after which I'd be driving under the | influence. Turns out drinking 5 beers over an hour or 2 I | was still only around 0.05. | vdqtp3 wrote: | When I was drinking heavily, I bought an evidence grade | breathalyzer. I would use it as directed (wait 15m after | eating or drinking, etc) and find that at a .08 I felt fine | (which means nothing, obviously) but also I could pass FSTs | and no one around me (sober or drunk) could tell that I had | been drinking. | | Not that anecdotes are data, just to say it 100% depends on | the person and the circumstances. Alcohol hits me much | harder now. | ksdale wrote: | Interesting! I've always wanted to play around with a | breathalyzer. | randombits0 wrote: | There was one in a bar I frequented many years ago, coin | op. The cops made them take it out as patrons were | competing who could blow the highest. | muttled wrote: | I'm picturing it like an arcade game where you got to put | your initials in if you got the high score. | abduhl wrote: | That's interesting. I just looked at this chart and would | be incredibly comfortable driving after drinking the | maximum number of drinks on the chart (5) which would place | me at 0.15 minus say .04 (over 3 hours, minus 0.01 per 45 | minutes) or 0.11. Perhaps you're just not a big drinker? | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > I just looked at this chart and would be incredibly | comfortable driving after drinking the maximum number of | drinks on the chart (5) | | 0.11 is very definitely impaired, whether or not you | "feel" anything. | | False feelings of sobriety are common in heavy drinkers | (and users of some drugs with similar mechanisms of | action) | | Please don't drink anywhere near this amount and drive, | no matter how sober you might feel. | abduhl wrote: | I'd just point out that this five drinks in three hours | is one drink more than the rule of thumb often given out | of two drinks in the first hour then one drink per hour | afterwards. It's the rare 200 lb person that has 5 beers | during a football/baseball/soccer game and is "very | definitely impaired." Sobriety limits are justifiably | geared towards the lower end to accommodate light-weight | drinkers. This is even pointed out on the chart by noting | that this is a 95th percentile drunkenness/BAC (i.e., 95% | of people are LESS drunk/have a lower BAC than shown or, | alternatively, 5% of people are MORE drunk than shown). | dagw wrote: | _Perhaps you're just not a big drinker?_ | | I think it's more of a question about risk tolerance than | alcohol tolerance | ksdale wrote: | Exactly. No one I know would describe me as a | lightweight, but when I have 2 drinks in 40 minutes, I'm | very well aware that my reaction time and my ability to | notice things is reduced to extent that I'd feel like a | jackass getting behind the wheel of a car, even if | society deems it legal. | t-3 wrote: | It's not legal to drive with _any_ detectable BAC. It 's | rarely prosecuted, but you can get in trouble for just | one. | [deleted] | shortstuffsushi wrote: | Random, I guess, but what does "fewer than 5 in 100 will | exceed these values" mean? Does that mean 5/100 would be more | drunk than what's listed there? Less drunk? "Exceed" the | weight on the high end? | p_j_w wrote: | Yes, 5/100 (actually, less than 5/100) would be more drunk. | It's their way of stating their confidence interval. | tdrdt wrote: | The list on Wikipedia is crazy: | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content (Highest | levels) | rvense wrote: | I have just under ten years of AA (and sobriety) under my belt, | so I have heard _a lot_ of war stories. I can 't remember ever | hearing anyone claim more than about 0.65% BAC. 1% sounds more | than a little extreme. | MivLives wrote: | Most normal people pass out at around .2, so the fact this | person could turn a car key is crazy. | pengaru wrote: | If you're pounding shots in a drinking game or just hitting | the Economy-sized bottle of Bacardi rum directly, it's | fairly easy to create a situation where you've gotten | behind the wheel buzzed and it all catches up to once | you're in motion. | ksdale wrote: | You'd have to literally take those shots and go out to | your car in the next few minutes to get surprised like | that, which... I guess people would do, but it's not | _that_ easy. Pounding shots catches up with you very | quickly. | pengaru wrote: | I've definitely had experiences where I managed to queue | up a profound amount of alcohol intoxication, becoming | realized abruptly after enough time had passed to switch | bars on foot. | | In one specific instance, I promptly became incapacitated | before even receiving my first drink at the new bar, | falling off a bar stool and vomiting on the floor, unable | to stand again, let alone walk. The bar-tender was | convinced I was overdosing on some hard drug apparently | and kicked us all out for being junkies, because I went | from walking in perfectly normal and ordering a drink, to | this complete disaster on the floor, in the time it took | her to prepare our drinks... It must have been a 10-20 | minute delay spent between bars on foot that time. The | first bar specialized in stiff sweet cocktails, where | they mask stupidly high alcohol content with sugary | syrup. IIRC it was called Sugar Lounge (in SF). And I | have very low tolerance not being much of a drinker, if | you've got tolerance I imagine you can push that time-to- | incapacitated delay out quite a bit. | ksdale wrote: | Haha touche, and entertaining story, though I'm sorry it | happened to you! | poetaster wrote: | I climbed over a wall in a police station to get into the loo | to pee at .25. Drank a litre of water, climbed back over, sat | on a bench and waited for someone to give me the drill. | Leaving out a lot of details, wound up buying a piano. I | don't drink and drive, though. That's mad. | withinboredom wrote: | I once climbed up five floors of balconies to get to the | bathroom. No idea why I didn't take the stairs, or the | elevator. | adamc wrote: | Just congratulations. | batty_alex wrote: | Isn't this just a really complicated way of saying that Alcohol | is a potassium diuretic and your body is adapting to something | flushing your potassium all the time? | | Not sure if it's lesser-known, though. When doing beer judging, | we're told to load-up on foods with lots of fat and potassium to | increase our tolerance (senses start working differently after | you're toasted, can make judging tough) | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Don't wine testers spit it out, so that their judgment remains | unimpaired? | poooogles wrote: | Yes. Often you'll do 3 - 5 tastings a week, sometimes even | two in a day so spitting really helps keep the alcohol intake | down. | | The thing that really gets you is palette exhaustion though. | Taste 40 ripe Cali cabs and they all start tasting the same | after a point... | [deleted] | rzzzt wrote: | (If someone wants to search for the term, also try "palate | fatigue") | tombert wrote: | For some reason (presumably because I'm tall or because I have | too much body fat (thanks Taco Bell!)), I have an extremely high | tolerance to alcohol, despite the fact that I almost never drink. | It can take upwards of 600ml of whisky for me to really "feel | unsafe to drive" [1], which is part of the reason I don't really | drink to begin with...If I don't have much fun with it, and it's | not healthy for me, I don't really see the point in partaking. | | [1] Don't worry, I've never tested this theory, I don't even own | a car. | dpratt71 wrote: | Fyi, "Alcohol distributes into water spaces, not fat" | https://sites.duke.edu/apep/module-1-gender-matters/content/... | leodriesch wrote: | "See, it's all just water weight!" | kerblang wrote: | My understanding was that increased alcohol intake raises hormone | levels, especially cortisol, which raises blood | pressure/breathing/etc and keeps you from dying. Also note the | jitters experienced as the alcohol is metabolized and things | swing out of balance in the opposite direction. | | So it would just be a matter of training your adrenals to | recognize and react quickly to the incoming booze, which for some | people is almost like a violent allergic reaction to a bee sting, | causing them to drink heavily in order to calm down. I don't | really have any research to back this part up though. | giantg2 wrote: | "They can drink a lot of alcohol and still have a relatively low | blood alcohol level." | | Any sources for this? My understanding is that an enlarged liver | does not process more alcohol because the enlargement is | typically fatty deposits, cirrhosis, and inflammation. I did find | an article that says alcoholic livers can produce a different set | of enzymes to metabolize the alcohol. But it says it produces a | different buzz, bit nothing about faster processing. | oaktrout wrote: | It's well known that alcoholics are for the most part better | metabolizers of alcohol (see | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S166526811... | Current concepts in alcohol metabolism, Caballeria), but its | not at all related to liver enlargement. My understanding is | that an enlarged liver is a symptom of alcoholic liver disease, | not a physiologic adaptation to better metabolize alcohol. The | current consensus is that most of the increased metabolism of | alcohol comes from enzyme upregulation in the liver. | | The authors misunderstanding of physiology makes me doubt any | further conclusions he makes. | giantg2 wrote: | "Moreover, in human studies it has been found that alcohol | consumption produces an increase in the ethanol elimination | rate, specially at high concentrations, which is when the | action of MEOS take place.37 This is important since it leads | to a greater plasma concentration of acetaldehyde as well as | an increase in toxic metabolites which may cause liver | damage." | | Ah, this is the thing I was mentioning earlier, but my other | source didn't say that it increased the elimination rate. | the-dude wrote: | I could drink 1L of wine @ 12% in ~1 hour and about 2.5 hours | later feel safe to drive. | | Not only did I feel safe to drive, I had to take a breathalyzer | once and passed ( although it did have to 'think' a while ). | | I did have dinner in the meantime. | mike_hock wrote: | The dude doesn't drink wine. The dude drinks White Russian. | the-dude wrote: | This was in my Seattle Seven period. | hackingforfun wrote: | It sounds like BK channels interact with NMDA receptors, which | are glutamate receptors. Glutamate is an excitatory | neurotransmitter. My understanding is that inhibiting glutamate | is partly what makes alcohol relaxing (the other is it's | interaction with GABA). Bodies have an amazing way of keeping | themselves in equilibrium and when someone is introducing alcohol | into their system on a regular basis, I figured that the body | regulates this by increasing levels of glutamate (although maybe | also via downregulating GABA receptors), so that the person stays | awake even with higher doses of alcohol. I do think that this can | lead to someone having a higher "tolerance". I also think that's | what contributes to what some people call hangxiety, i.e. there's | still extra glutamate floating around that wouldn't otherwise be | there. | | However, an enlarged liver helping someone process alcohol better | sounds bizarre to me. I thought a liver being able to process | alcohol faster was due to increased enzymes since the body again | is trying to balance itself and is dealing with what is being | introduced by upping certain enzymes, whereas in a non-drinker, | those enzymes wouldn't be at elevated levels. | oaktrout wrote: | "However, an enlarged liver helping someone process alcohol | better sounds bizarre to me. I thought a liver being able to | process alcohol faster was due to increased enzymes since the | body again is trying to balance itself and is dealing with what | is being introduced by upping certain enzymes, whereas in a | non-drinker, those enzymes wouldn't be at elevated levels." | | You are correct, in fact an enlarged liver could be a sign that | you are less able to metabolize alcohol. "To this effect, the | adaptative increase in alcohol metabolism observed in chronic | alcoholics disappears in patients with advanced liver disease." | [1] Liver enlargement is a sign of liver disease. I guess | that's the sort of mistake you will encounter when reading | posts regarding biochemistry / medicine on hacker news. | | [1] Current concepts in alcohol metabolism https://www.scienced | irect.com/science/article/pii/S166526811...: | peter_retief wrote: | I definitely fall into the latter category, that is I have very | little tolerence for alchohol. There are people I have known who | can drink huge amounts and still be functional, these people | drink steadily and regularly. I gave up completely about two | years ago and I strongly recommend this. I was never a big | drinker but stopping has had a dramatic effect on my weight and | health. It is not that difficult to stop and has dramatic | benefits. | fouc wrote: | I have noticed that with some intentional concentration, I can | summon a higher degree of sobriety/functionality than I might | ordinarily have when under the influence. I always assumed much | of that was from the adrenal glands though. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-07 23:00 UTC)