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Diet Mixers Make You Drunk Faster |
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Written by Superhuman
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Thursday, 17 January 2008 |
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Diet mixers, such as low-calorie tonic water, diet margarita mix and low-calorie soda speed the rate
that alcohol enters the bloodstream. High-sugar liquids empty from the stomach more slowly than water or low-calorie drinks. Diet mixers contain little or no sugar, so the alcohol in the drink leaves the stomach quickly and enters the bloodstream rapidly, which makes you drunk faster. Australian researchers, using ultrasound, measured the rate that drinks containing diet or normal mixers emptied from the stomach. Drinks using diet mixers left the gut 15 minutes sooner (21 versus 36 minutes) and caused nearly 50 percent higher blood alcohol levels. Women should be particularly careful using diet mixers: consuming the same number of drinks, blood alcohol increases more in women than men. Also, women are more likely to use diet mixers. Consider the volume of alcohol you drink and the sugar content of the mixer when trying to maintain a legal blood alcohol level. (American Journal Medicine, 802-804, 2006)
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