Does a sparkling wine like Champagne or Prosecco make you drunk faster than a still drink? ? A question we have certainly all asked ourselves…
Who has never had their head spinning after a little glass of champagne ? Does an effervescent alcoholic drink get you drunk faster than a quiet drink ? An experiment was carried out in 2003 to try to answer this question. Sparkling wine on the dock !
What is blood alcohol ?
Blood alcohol levels are the result of the concentration of alcohol in the blood. To fully understand this phenomenon, let's take a simple example. The human body is made up of 65% of water. An individual from 80 kg has therefore nearly 52 liters of water in his body. After having a drink at 10 grams of alcohol, this quantity is found “diluted” in the body's water. The theoretical blood alcohol level then rises to 0,19 gram of alcohol per liter.
When the concentration of alcohol in the blood is less than 0,5 gram per liter - maximum tolerated driving in France –, symptoms remain limited to behavioral disinhibition. Arrived at one gram per liter, the individual loses his capacity for judgment and control, with reduced coordination and sensory perception. Past the bar 2 grams per liter, this is the start of nausea, the individual staggers and has a reduced reaction time. Then to 3 grams per liter : disorientation, confusion, loss of balance and perception of the environment. Finally, past the 4 grams per liter : apathy, somnolence, vomiting and, in the worst case, coma and death from respiratory distress. In short terms, being drunk is really not cool…
Of course, the blood alcohol level depends on many parameters. Some parameters are related to the drink itself : amount absorbed, consumption speed, type of alcohol and mixed with non-alcoholic drinks or the temperature of the alcoholic drink. Other parameters are more individual : genre, age, weight, fatigue, stomach contents and alcohol tolerance or dependence, this last parameter acting on the ability to eliminate with alcohol.
Do champagne bubbles make you drunk ?
Fran Ridout and his colleagues, from Epsom Hospital, in England, showed thanks to 12 volunteers that consumption 20 minutes of a glass of champagne containing 0,6 gram of alcohol per kilogram of an individual's body weight results in a blood alcohol level of 0,6 gram per liter faster than if the same glass of champagne were degassed. The blood alcohol level observed is higher during 20 minutes after ingestion, and there is an increase of about 20% blood alcohol levels during 10 first minutes. Through another experience, researchers have shown that drinking champagne increases reaction time in psychomotor performance tests.
It is important to have a finish
The bubbles contained in the champagne would therefore facilitate the absorption of alcohol in the stomach, with the consequence of a faster blood alcohol level. In addition, the bubbles speed up the passage of stomach contents into the intestine. They therefore lead to faster absorption of alcohol in the small intestine. The physico-chemical mechanism accelerating absorption is still unknown, but this study shows us that there is a different reaction of the human body to an effervescent drink. However, there is one more open question. : why a champagne without bubbles is much less interesting to drink ?
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