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The San Diego Union-Tribune

Eating before drinking is wise


December 27, 2005

THE CLAIM: It's an age-old rule about drinking, one that everyone knows and most people have broken: always fill up on food before filling up on alcohol.

Common wisdom, of course, suggests a simple reason, that drinking on an empty stomach will lead to intoxication more quickly. But just how much of a difference does eating before imbibing really make?

THE FACTS: According to several studies and experts on alcohol, a lot. In 1994, one team of Swedish researchers set out to answer the question by having a group of 10 people consume a few drinks on two separate days.

In one case, they drank after an overnight fast, and in the other, they drank after they ate a modest breakfast.

On the day the subjects ate, the rate of intoxication was slower, even though the amount of alcohol had not changed. But the subjects also reached significantly lower blood-alcohol levels overall – on average about 70 percent of what they were on the day they skipped breakfast.

In some cases, the study found, having a meal before drinking kept a person from climbing over the legal blood-alcohol limit for driving in most states.

Dr. Harris B. Stratyner, an addiction specialist and associate professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said it all had to do with metabolism.

As soon as alcohol is consumed, he said, the body starts to break it down, but some is always absorbed directly into the bloodstream.

Having food in the stomach – particularly proteins, fats and dense carbohydrates – slows that absorption process.

The things that speed it up are carbonated mixers, like soda, and higher temperatures. (Warm drinks are absorbed faster.) Once alcohol is in your blood, Stratyner said, neither coffee nor a cold shower will get it out any faster.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Drinking on an empty stomach makes you drunk faster.

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