Does mixing alcohol with diet drinks make you a cheap drunk?
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Mignon: The next story I have is that drinking alcoholic drinks that are mixed with a diet drink instead of a regular mixer makes you more intoxicated.
Adam: What is it about the diet drinks that causes more drunkenness? Is it the lack of sugar or the stimulant effects of caffeine that might be present?
Mignon: No. One reason they think the men in the study got more drunk was because when they got the diet drink their stomachs actually emptied out faster, which meant that the alcohol rushed into their bloodstream faster.
So, on the two different days they had about 8 men who came into the lab and either drink vodka with orange juice (a screwdriver) or a diet screwdriver, and then they measured their blood alcohol levels. So the guys all fasted before the study so they had presumably empty stomachs, and on one day they got the full drink and then on another day the same guys got the diet drink. So the men served as their own controls, which is kind of nice.
One thing they didn't address that I was wondering is whether the effect was related to sheer calories, since the diet drink had about 250 calories less than the regular screwdriver. Since they always say that if you want to keep from getting smashed it is important to eat something when you are drinking.
Adam: And I guess part of that is the slowdown in terms of digestive processes and stomach emptying.
Mignon: Right. And the AOL article also noted that other research has shown that artificial sweeteners makes the brain 'think' that there is a sugar load coming and prepares the body by releasing insulin, and so that also could have influenced the faster stomach clearing.
Adam: Well I guess that's good news for people who want to be a cheap drunk.
Mignon: So anyway, if you're on a diet and thinking of mixing a rum and diet coke, or vodka and crystal light, be aware that it could take fewer drinks than normal to become intoxicated. Also, the researchers aren't sure what this means for women, because the study only looked at men and past research has shown that women metabolize alcohol differently than men. So I guess if you're a woman you'll have to have your friends over, put away the car keys and conduct your own little study.
Adam: Although also be aware even for those on a diet, if you are trying to mix diet drinks with alcohol, alcohol alone has a lot of calories.
Mignon: Yeah, even the diet alcohol drinks had around 250 calories; so it's not a low calorie drink no matter what you're mixing mixing it with it with. And as I was looking around I found a related study published in April in the Journal Alcoholism: Clinical and looking around Experimental Research, showing that although mixing energy drinks made people feel like they were less impaired by alcohol, they really weren't when response time the researchers tested motor function and visual response time. So don't go thinking you can drive after having three rum and Redbulls drive after or something like that.
Adam: You may feel more alert but you're just as drunk.
Mignon: That's right. They actually used vodka and Redbull in the study, but rum and Redbull sounds more fun. I did some Googling and found out that Vodka and Redbull is apparently a really trendy drink, so I'm surprised that there isn't some catchy name for it, but I couldn't find one.
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