Adding oxygen to alcohol to sober up faster?

  • Share
  • Read Later

© Koolstock/Corbis

Alcoholic beverages that have been pumped full of oxygen may take less time to process in the body—meaning that drinkers sober up faster, according to a new study published this month in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. A team of researchers from Chungnam National University in South Korea began with the understanding that oxygen is necessary for the body to process alcohol, and a higher level of oxygen can speed how quickly alcohol is metabolized. To see how processing alcohol differed when booze was pumped full of additional oxygen, they gave 49 study participants alcoholic drinks with three different levels of oxygen concentration—8, 20 and 25 parts per million (ppm). After consuming the booze, participants blood alcohol content (BAC) levels were checked at regular intervals. Researchers found that, in those who had consumed the most heavily oxygenated alcoholic drinks, the time it took for BAC to reach zero was significantly shorter than for the less oxygen-rich drinks.

Drinkers who consumed the more heavily oxygenated alcoholic beverages saw BAC levels return to zero 20 to 27 minutes faster than those who consumed the less oxygenated booze. In a series of three experiments, participants consumed either 8 oz. (240 ml) or 12 oz. (360 ml) of drinks that were 19.5% alcohol by volume. Those who drank 8 oz. of the alcohol that had 20ppm of dissolved oxygen returned to a 0.00 BAC 20 minutes sooner than those who drank 8oz. with 8ppm of oxygen. In a later experiment, participants who drank 12 oz. of alcohol with either 20ppm or 25ppm of dissolved oxygen returned to a BAC of 0.00 23 and 27 minutes faster respectively than those who drank the 8ppm versions.

The researchers tout these findings as potentially introducing a way to reduce alcohol-related problems such as car crashes or other incidents, concluding that “enhanced dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may have a role to play in reducing alcohol-related side effects and accidents.” Yet, in spite of those good intentions, perhaps, critics of oxygenated alcohol wonder whether the possibility of more speedy sobriety might only prompt drinkers to consume more. As the New Scientist reports, a spokeswoman for the British Medical Association expressed skepticism over the merits of booze that allows you to bounce back faster: “We wouldn’t want a situation where people drank more simply because they would recover quicker.”