Subj : ALCOHOL METABOLISM 50912
To   : Dave Sacerdote
From : Glen Jamieson
Date : Mon Sep 12 2005 12:06 pm

 -=> Quoting Dave Sacerdote to Joan Macdiarmid <=-

 JW> Technically spirits contain no carbs per se but don't forget that when
 JW> alcohol gets digested it converts into sugar which is a carb. . .
 
 GJ> I beg leave to disagree with that statement, which I have read
 GJ> elsewhere, and which seems to have been accepted as fact by many
 GJ> people.   My argument is that if alcohol was digested into sugar it
 GJ> would not make you drunk. I maintain that alcohol passes unchanged
 GJ> into the bloodstream, which carries it to the brain where it has
 GJ> certain pleasurable/harmful effects.  Eventually it is removed from
 GJ> the bloodstream by the kidneys and excreted. 
 
 DS> I did some research about this.  Jim and Glen are both wrong
 DS> (though it could be said that Glen is wrong to a lesser degree.)

Thanks.  I stand corrected over the method of disposal of the alcohol,
but appreciate your justification of my other statement, which was my
main objection to the original claim.

 DS> Alcohol, when consumed, is partially absorbed into the bloodstream
 DS> by the stomach; however, most of it continues on to the small 
 DS> intestine, where the remainder is absorbed.  It travels around in
 DS> the body for awhile.  Roughly 5% of the alcohol you drink is
 DS> transferred to the alvioli in the lungs and is expelled through
 DS> evaporation via breathing (accounting for "distillery breath.")

And those incriminating figures in the Police breathalyser.

 DS> Most of the rest is metabolized by the liver into acetate.
 DS> Alcohol is not, therefore, removed directly by the kidneys - 
 DS> the liver takes care of it first.  But it takes care of it 
 DS> slowly, which is why we get drunk - the alcohol floating around
 DS> in your bloodstream affects your brain.

If this function of the liver is over-utilised that would explain the
liver deterioration of heavy drinkers.

 DS> So, now that we have established that Jim Weller was mistaken
 DS> about the sugars, why does alcohol consumption make one fatter?
 DS> Several reasons.  First, the body uses alcohol calories first,
 DS> before stored fat and consumed food.  When your body is using
 DS> alky calories, it's not using stored fat, and also begins 
 DS> storing unused calories from food as fat. Studies have shown 
 DS> that whole body lipid oxidation (which is a measure of how
 DS> much fat your body is burning) drops a massive 73%!

 DS> Remember how the liver metabolizes alcohol into acetate? When
 DS> acetate levels in your bloodstream rise, the body shifts 
 DS> away from processing fats and sugars and over to processing
 DS> acetate for the easy calories.

 DS> And that is how it works.

 DS> Cites for this information:
 DS> http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/alcohol.htm
 DS> http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/alcoholandyou/default.html
 DS> http://www.ivillage.co.uk/dietandfitness/nutrition/fooddiet/
 DS> articles/0,9544,238_160400,00.html

Thanks for this painstaking research.  I shall think of it when next I
allow alcohol to pass my lips.
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