Mark Harden's Artchive: Alphonse MuchaClick for larger image.
Posted on 12/19/2001 7:08:29 PM PST by dighton
THE bubbles in champagne really do make the alcohol go straight to your head.
Scientists have confirmed what champagne-drinkers have always claimed: people who sip at a bit of fizz get more drunk more quickly than those who drink similar quantities of a still wine.
Researchers at the University of Surrey at Guildford held two drinks parties for their department to test whether champagne bubbles helped to put their guests under the influence. At the first, half of the 12 drinkers were given two glasses of fizzy champagne while the rest had a version that had been stirred with a whisk to get rid of the bubbles. The following week the party was repeated, with each guest receiving the other type of drink.
Blood was taken from each of the drinkers after five minutes and 40 minutes to determine how quickly they were getting drunk. They also took part in computer dexterity tests to see how severely they were affected by the alcohol.
The people who drank fizzy champagne were more intoxicated by each indicator. After five minutes the fizz-drinkers had an average of 0.54 milligrams of alcohol per millilitre of blood (mg/ml), compared with a rate of 0.39 mg/ml for those who had the flat champagne. After 40 minutes the average reading for the bubbly group was 0.7 mg/ml — only 0.1 mg/ml below the legal limit for driving — while the flat champagne group had reached only 0.58 mg/ml.
In the computer psychomotor tests, a standard measure of drunkenness, champagne-drinkers took an average of 200 milliseconds longer to notice objects in their peripheral vision than they did when sober. The group drinking flat wine took only an extra 50 milliseconds.
Those who had the fizz were also less vigilant, finding it harder to spot sequences of three odd or even numbers within a random set of figures. The two groups’ memory and general reaction times, however, were the same.
The experiment, which was supervised by Carlo Nunes, of Epsom General Hospital in Surrey, is reported today in New Scientist. Drinkers were weighed beforehand so that the amount of champagne poured into their glass could be adjusted according to their build.
“At the end of the experiment the bubbly-drinkers were visibly worse for wear,” said Fran Ridout, who led the research team. “Some could hardly write. It emphasises the importance of not drinking anything before driving.”
If bubbles affect drunkenness, the mechanism by which they do so remains a mystery. Normally, about 20 per cent of alcohol is absorbed in the stomach, the remainder entering through the intestines. Some researchers believe the carbon dioxide in the bubbles speeds the flow of alcohol through the stomach and into the intestines. “It must be absorbed from the digestive system quicker,” Ms Ridout said.
• Taking up drinking in middle age has mixed results for men’s health (Nigel Hawkes writes). The incidence of heart attacks is reduced, yet the risks of dying from them, and from other diseases, including cancer, are higher.
Two researchers at the Royal Free Hospital in London, whose work appears in Heart, conclude that it is not, after all, advisable for middle-aged men who drink only occasionally or not at all to become regular drinkers. But men who are already regular drinkers fare at least as well as any other group, with lower heart disease, lower heart death rates, and equal death rates from other causes. Paradoxically, regular drinking seems to be good for you, but not taking it up in middle age. The number of new regular drinkers studied was relatively small, however.
“There is little evidence that taking up regular drinking in later life confers benefit overall; indeed it may increase the risk of non-cardiovascular deaths,” concludes one of the authors, Dr Gerry Shaper.
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.
I'll stick to vodka. :- )
.
Or JD.
So if I drink champagne while standing on my head, I should be able to drink all night!! <|:)~
Still wine has anywhere from as low as 4% (dessert wine) and is usually at 10% to 12% APV, whereas Champagne has 15% to 18%+ APV....
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