By Dr. Mercola

Some people believe that an occasional glass of red wine can benefit your health. Regardless of the merits of this view, too much red wine is a recipe for disaster.

Alcohol can impair decision-making abilities and motor skills. It is frequently a factor in vehicular accidents, violent behaviors, unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to the lethal danger of alcohol poisoning, too, which negatively impacts your health and may even cost you your life if it’s not properly addressed.

In the United States alone, there are estimatedly 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) reported yearly from 2006 to 2010 due to alcohol poisoning, hacking off an average of 30 years on the lives of those who died. ¹

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Alcohol poisoning impairs the body and eventually can shut down the areas of the brain that control basic life-support functions like breathing, heart rate, and temperature control.²

You become more susceptible to alcohol poisoning when you:

• Binge drink, or consume four or more (women) or 5 or more (men) alcoholic beverages in a single occasion.
• Drink heavily, or consume eight or more (women) or 15 or more (men) alcoholic beverages per week.
• Drink during pregnancy. No amount of alcohol is safe to drink during pregnancy due to risks of passing alcohol toxicity through the placenta to your unborn child, which can cause severe damages at any stage of pregnancy.
• Drink under the age of 21. Underage drinkers are more vulnerable to alcohol poisoning as studies have shown that they typically consume about five drinks in a single occasion.

Alcohol Poisoning Symptoms

Alcohol poisoning comes with very serious health penalties, which is why it’s very important to be well-informed about what symptoms you need to watch out for. Below are some of the most common telltale signs of alcohol poisoning:³

If you notice any of these symptoms, call 911 for help immediately.

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Generally, women are more vulnerable to alcohol poisoning. They feel the effects of alcohol faster than men of the same size. Unfortunately, they’re also more predisposed to suffer from long-term alcohol-induced damage in the body. This is due to several physiological reasons, such as: ⁴

• Poor ability to dilute alcohol because they have lower body water percentage in the body. The average female only has 52 percent while the average male has 61 percent.
• Poor ability to metabolize alcohol because they have less dehydrogenase, a liver enzyme designed to break down alcohol in the body, than men.
• Hormones. Premenstrual hormone changes tend to make women get intoxicated more rapidly during the days before their period. Birth control pills and other estrogen-containing medications, on the other hand, slow down the excretion of alcohol from the body.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that men are completely safe from the dangers of alcohol poisoning. Below are a number of other factors that affect your body’s response to alcohol, regardless if you’re male or female:

How much water you drink, how often you drink, your age, and your family history are potential risk factors as well.

Blood Alcohol Content: How Much Is Too Much?

Blood alcohol content (BAC), also called blood alcohol concentration, refers to the amount of alcohol in your bloodstream. It is expressed as the weight of ethanol measured in grams in 100 milliliters of blood or 210 liters of breath. BAC can be measured either through a breathalyzer test, a blood test, or a urine test.

For example, a BAC of 0.10 means that 0.10% (one-tenth of one percent) of your blood, by volume, is alcohol. All 50 states have now set .08% BAC as the legal limit for Driving Under the Influence (DUI). For commercial drivers, a BAC of .04% can result in a DUI conviction nationwide. For those under age 21, there is a zero tolerance limit―any amount of alcohol is grounds for a DUI arrest.^{5 Nature Made Super B-Co... Buy New $9.49 ($0.07 / Count) (as of 05:25 UTC - Details)}

To calculate your current blood alcohol content, there are free online sites and apps you can try like BloodCalculator.org and iDrinkSmarter. BAC results may vary depending on several variables, which include your gender, personal alcohol tolerance, body weight, and body fat percentage.⁶

How Much Alcohol Is in Your Drink?

As far as the Standard Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 is concerned, moderate drinking is having no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men.

Basically, a standard drink contains 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol, which is usually found in:⁷

• 12 ounces of beer (five percent alcohol)
• Eight ounces of malt liquor (seven percent alcohol)
• Five ounces of wine (12 percent alcohol)
• 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor like gin, rum, vodka, and whiskey (40 percent alcohol)

Various brands and types of alcoholic beverages come with different alcohol content levels. To have an idea how much alcohol your favorite drink contains, check out this chart below: ⁸

As a rule of thumb, darker and bitter beers have higher alcohol content. Red wines, on the other hand, have higher alcohol content than white wines, except for chardonnay. Also, sweeter wines have less alcohol content. Meanwhile, all clear liquors have 40 percent alcohol content except for grain alcohol. While darker liquors have more alcohol content, like red wine, sweeter variants have less.

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If left untreated, a person suffering from alcohol poisoning can:⁹

• Choke on his/her own vomit
• Be severely dehydrated, which can cause seizures, permanent brain damage, and even death
• Have slow and irregular breathing, which can eventually stop
• Have irregular heartbeats, which can eventually stop
• Have hypothermia
• Have hypoglycemia (extremely low blood sugar), which can lead to seizures

Long-Term Effects of Alcohol in Women

Because a woman’s body has less tolerance for alcohol compared to men, it’s more susceptible to the damaging effects of alcohol poisoning. Numerous studies have linked these health consequences to excessive drinking in women, which include:

• Disrupted menstrual cycle¹⁰
• Increased risk of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature delivery¹¹
• Higher risk of liver cirrhosis and other alcohol-related liver diseases compared to men¹²
• Memory loss and brain shrinkage¹³
• Increased risk  of mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon, and breast cancer¹⁴

Alcohol is also a common risk factor in many cases of sexual assault, particularly among young women. About 1 in 20 college women are sexually assaulted each year, and research suggests that there is a higher likelihood of rape or sexual assault when both the victim and the attacker are under the influence of alcohol before the incident.^15,16

Dos and Don’ts for Someone Suspected with Alcohol Poisoning

It is not something to be ignored in belief that it will pass and go away the following day. If you believe that someone you know could be suffering from alcohol poisoning, here are some steps that you can do and avoid doing to comfort them while waiting for help: NOW Supplements, Vitam... Buy New $15.10 (as of 10:00 UTC - Details)

Do:

• Make sure they remain conscious
• Keep them hydrated by giving them water
• Keep them warm
• Stay with them and never leave them alone
• Monitor their symptoms
• Ensure they lie on their side so they won’t choke  on their own vomit

Don’t:

• Tell them to sleep it off. The blood alcohol content can continue to rise even when they’re not drinking.
• Give them coffee. This will further dehydrate the person.
• Instruct them to walk around. This may only cause falls and bumps, which may result in serious injuries, given the brain’s unfit condition.
• Ask them to take a cold shower. Alcohol lowers your body temperature, and making them feel colder than they already feel could lead to hypothermia.

Lastly, don’t wait for all the symptoms of alcohol poisoning to show up and don’t hesitate to call for emergency medical help immediately. Remember, BAC levels can rise rapidly, and time is of the essence in this situation. Being a minute too late could mean irreversible damage or even death.

How to Prevent Alcohol Poisoning

It does not take rocket science to know how you can prevent yourself or your friends from suffering from alcohol poisoning. I believe the first step, and probably the most important one, that you can take is to practice self-control. Avoid and discourage your friends from participating in  any alcohol drinking challenge, which is a surefire way to get alcohol poisoning.

However, if you really must have a few drinks, I personally recommend taking this natural protocol beforehand to pretox your body:

These pretox measures are imperative for supplying your body with the vitamins, antioxidants, and other nutrients to protect your liver and assist in the breakdown and removal of alcohol from your system.

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• Staying hydrated – Drink a glass of water along with each alcoholic beverage to help prevent dehydration. At bedtime, drink another large glass of water or two to help stave off hangover symptoms in the morning.
• Eating before and during drinking – If your stomach is empty, it will speed up the alcohol’s rate of absorption into your body. It may also cause severe stomach irritation. Make it a point to eat a meal before you drink alcohol and nibble on satisfying snacks (such as cheese) while you drink. At the very least, try this old piece of wisdom from the Mediterranean region: take a spoonful of olive oil before drinking alcohol to help prevent a hangover.
• Replenishing electrolytes – Try drinking coconut water before you go to bed to help reduce hangover symptoms in the morning.
• Sticking with clear alcohol – Generally, clear liquors (vodka, gin, or white wine) will contain fewer congeners than darker varieties (brandy or whiskey).
• Stopping once you feel buzzed – When you feel buzzed, it’s a sign that your body’s detoxification pathways are becoming overwhelmed. Take a break from drinking, or quit for the day entirely, to allow your body to metabolize the alcohol effectively.

In addition, I also advise against drinking when you’re feeling down, or worse, depressed, as this can only lead to unconscious and uncontrolled alcohol consumption. Note that alcohol can actually alter your brain chemistry and lower the levels of serotonin, a mood-regulating chemical in your brain, increasing your anxiety and stress instead of reducing it.

Rather than falling into the vicious cycle of alcohol abuse, I recommend addressing your emotional health as soon as possible. Try Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which is one of the most effective energy psychology tools for me.

Sources and References

• ¹ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Alcohol and Public Health: Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI)
• ² National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
• ³ Drink Aware UK
• ⁴ Brown University Health Promotion
• ⁵ Alcohol Controls
• ⁶ University of Notre Dame
• ⁷ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alcohol and Public Health
• ⁸ Virginia Tech
• ⁹ University of Texas
• ¹⁰ Journal of Pharmacology, 1988 May;245(2):pp. 407-12
• ¹¹ Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research, 1984 September-October;8(5):pp.451-8
• ¹² Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology
• ¹³ American Journal of Psychiatry, 2001 February;158(2):pp.198-204
• ¹⁴ The Lancet Oncology, 2007 April;8(4):pp.292-3
• ¹⁵ Journal of Studies on Alcohol Supplement, 2002 March;(14):pp.118-28
• ¹⁶ Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 2004 Jan;65(1):pp. 37-45

The Best of Dr. Joseph Mercola

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