Beer : Health and Nutrition

The Impact of Alcohol on Health 143
Table 6.3 Estimated blood alcohol content (mg/mL) for people of different weight consuming different
numbers of drinks (1 drink = 355 mL of beer of around 5% ABV).
Weight (pounds) 1 drink 2 drinks 3 drinks 4 drinks 5 drinks
Men
100 0.43 0.87 1.3 1.74 2.17
125 0.34 0.69 1.03 1.39 1.73
150 0.29 0.58 0.87 1.16 1.45
175 0.25 0.5 0.75 1.0 1.25
200 0.22 0.43 0.65 0.87 1.08
225 0.19 0.39 0.58 0.78 0.97
250 0.17 0.35 0.52 0.7 0.87
Women
100 0.5 1.01 1.52 2.03 2.53
125 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.62 2.02
150 0.34 0.68 1.01 1.35 1.69
175 0.29 0.58 0.87 1.17 1.46
200 0.26 0.5 0.76 1.01 1.26
225 0.22 0.45 0.68 0.91 1.13
250 0.2 0.41 0.61 0.82 1.01
Source: derived from Fox (1997).
to one month. They found that the ethanol in beer was oxidised twice as fast as that in
wine and seven times faster than that in whisky. Absorbed alcohol passes into the blood
in 15–30 minutes if the stomach is empty, but in 1–3 hours if the stomach is full. There
is a constant rate of metabolism of approximately 100 mg per hour per kg body weight.
Thus an adult male weighing 70 kg drinking of 750 mL of beer on an empty stomach
would not reach the French drinking limit of 0.8 g/L of blood.
Alcohol should not be consumed with aspirin, which disables alcohol dehydrogenase
(Roine et al. 1990).
The predisposition to hangovers differs considerably between people with regard to
the intensity of the condition in relation to how much alcohol has been taken. Furthermore
it also depends on the type of drink. Thus, among the spirits, brandy has a more severe
impact than whisky, with vodka having proportionately less tendency to cause hangovers.
There has been much discussion but few rm conclusions concerning the prime causative
agents of hangovers (Pradalier & Ollat 1991). They are believed partly to be due
to a build-up of acetaldehyde produced via the oxidation of alcohol (Wall et al. 2000).
The aldehyde interacts with components of brain cells to exert its effect. Congeners
such as traces of methanol are also oxidised by alcohol and the resultant formaldehyde
is even more unpleasant in its effects than acetaldehyde.
Other compounds that may contribute to hangovers include some of the biogenic
amines that are found in relatively small quantities in beer (see Table 6.4). These include
15–200 µg/L histamine, 0.7–35.5 mg/L tyramine, 0.5–07 mg/L cadaverine, 3.1–5.6 mg/L
putrescine and < 0.1–0.8 mg/L β-phenylethylamine (Cerutti et al. 1989).