NAD and Acetaldehyde and Alcoholism-Routes of Alcohol Ingestion

The attractive bottles of alcohol are only inviting you poor health and alcoholism

The only normal route of ingesting alcohol is drinking it–but this is not the only route possible. Other more exotic routes are used on occasion. Alcohol can be inhaled, absorbed through the skin, injected, or given as an enema. Let us take a look at each of these methods:

Inhalation: AWOL (Alcohol without Liquid) is an alcohol inhalation device that has been released in the US and the UK. AWOL’s manufacturers claim that when alcohol is vaporized and inhaled it can lead to intoxication as much as 10 times as quickly as drinking and allows one to sober up with no hangover in an equally rapid time frame. Doctors are still debating the safety of AWOL. At least 22 states in the US have banned AWOL.

Injection: Some scientific researchers give alcohol injections to research subjects when they wish to bypass the stomach. It was the comparison of the effects of injected alcohol with orally ingested alcohol which led scientists to conclude that women have less alcohol dehydrogenase in their stomachs than men do. Self-administration of alcohol by injection is extremely dangerous and should never be attempted. The risk of death by alcohol poisoning is extremely high.

Alcohol enema: This is another rather dangerous and sometimes deadly form of alcohol administration. If the internet is to be believed then alcohol enemas are not uncommon at sex parties. A beer enema might be safe enough. However the simple fact is that alcohol is absorbed very rapidly through the large intestine and the rectum and there are no enzymes here to break it down. Thus the same dose of alcohol given by enema will produce a much higher BAC than if one drinks it. There was a famous case of death by sherry enema in Texas where the wife was acquitted of murder charges. And a vodka enema is silent but deadly for sure.

Transdermal: Alcohol can also be absorbed through the skin although this is quite a slow and impractical method of ingesting it.

NAD and Acetaldehyde and Alcoholism-Why Alcohol Has a Steady State Metabolism Rather Than a Half Life

When a drug like valium is broken down by the human body the resultant metabolites are harmless. It is for this reason that drugs like valium are broken down as quickly as the body can process them–and hence they have a half life. The half life of valium is 35 hours on the average. This means that if you take a 10 mg dose of valium, then 35 hours later half of it will have been metabolized and only 5 mg will remain. In another 35 hours half of this will be metabolized and only 2.5 mg will remain and so on. When we plot the metabolism of valium on a graph we get an exponential curve–in other words–drugs which have a half life have an exponential rate of decay. Chemists refer to this as a First Order Reaction.

Alcohol, on the other hand, shows a steady state metabolism not an exponential metabolism. The body of the average human metabolizes around 13 ml of alcohol per hour regardless. When we plot the metabolism of alcohol on a graph we get a straight line–in other words the rate of decay of alcohol is linear. Chemists refer to this as a Zero Order Reaction. The reason why alcohol has a steady state metabolism rather than a half-life metabolism is because the primary decay product of alcohol metabolism–acetaldehyde–is poisonous. The body must eliminate the acetaldehyde produced by the breakdown of alcohol before any more alcohol can be processed in order to avoid acetaldehyde poisoning. This slows down the rate of alcohol metabolism to a Zero Order Reaction rather than a First Order Reaction.

NAD and Acetaldehyde and Alcoholism-Why do humans have a way to break down alcohol

Practically every animal from the fruit fly to the elephant has a way to break down ethyl alcohol because ethyl alcohol is found everywhere in nature. Every time you eat a piece of fresh fruit, drink a glass of fresh orange juice, or have a slice of freshly baked bread then chances are that you are getting trace amounts of alcohol along with it. It is not uncommon to see intoxicated birds which have eaten fermented fruit. Monkeys are known to seek out fermented fruit for the intoxicating effect and Indian elephants have been known to break into breweries or wineries to drink up what is stored there.

Not only are we constantly ingesting alcohol along with the food we eat, our own bodies produce alcohol as a part of the digestive process. Our digestive tracts contain millions of micro-organisms which are necessary for us to properly digest our food. Among these micro-organisms are yeasts which produce alcohol from sugars within our own bodies.

With alcohol so omnipresent in nature it is necessary that animals have a way to break alcohol down, otherwise it would just accumulate in the body and no animal could function properly because the animals would always be constantly intoxicated.

Other alcohols such as methyl alcohol (wood alcohol) and isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) do not normally occur in nature. This is why we do not have a mechanism to break them down and why they are poisonous.

NAD and Acetaldehyde and Alcoholism-Poisonous Alcohols

The difference between wood alcohol–also known as methyl alcohol or methanol–and ethanol is that wood alcohol has one less carbon and two less hydrogen atoms. The chemical formula for ethanol is C2H6O whereas the formula for methanol is CH4O. Alcohol dehydrogenase converts methanol into formaldehyde (CH2O) and aldehyde dehydrogenase turns this formaldehyde into a formic acid radical (CH2O-). Both formaldehyde and formic acid are highly poisonous and quickly dead to blindness and death.

Another highly poisonous alcohol is ethylene glycol (C2H6O2) which is used in antifreeze. A metabolite of ethylene glycol is the highly poisonous oxalic acid.

Rubbing alcohol (C3H8O)–also known as isopropyl alcohol–is more poisonous than ethanol but not as poisonous as methanol. Some chronic alcoholics turn to drinking rubbing alcohol when ethanol is unavailable–and some even come to prefer it.

NAD and Acetaldehyde and Alcoholism-Alcohol and Blood Sugar

Although alcohol may cause a slight rise in blood sugar levels when initially ingested–the overall effect of alcohol is to cause a drop in blood sugar. The more you drink the more the blood sugar drops. Eating before, during or after drinking can help to alleviate this blood sugar drop somewhat. Drinks with lots of carbs like beer or mixed drinks with sugary mixers can lead to blood sugar spikes preceding the blood sugar drop.

Because of alcohol’s effect on blood sugar people with diabetes are recommended to have no more than one or two standard drinks per day and to avoid drinks high in carbs. Untreated diabetes can lead to severe consequences including blindness, amputation of limbs affected by gangrene and even death–so diabetics are recommended to be especially cautious about their alcohol intake.

NAD and Acetaldehyde and Alcoholism-Routes of Alcohol Ingestion