Many people who don't drink beer still have alcohol levels - Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Injustice but no one believes explanation
CNN once reported on a case recorded in a study by the University of Richmond Medical Center in New York (USA): a man in North Carolina (USA) was arrested by the police on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
The 50-year-old refused to blow into a police breathalyzer and was taken to the hospital, where his initial blood alcohol level was found to be 0.2 percent, nearly 2.5 times the legal limit and equivalent to drinking 10 drinks an hour. However, he repeatedly swore he had not had anything to drink. Of course, the police did not believe him, nor did the doctors.
Then, researchers at Richmond University Medical Center in New York discovered that he was telling the truth. He didn't drink beer or cocktails, but an enzyme in his gut was able to convert carbohydrates in his food into alcohol. This is one form of "endogenous alcohol concentration."
The study was published in the journal BMJ Open Gastroenterology . The man was diagnosed with a rare medical condition called auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), also known as gut fermentation syndrome.
This syndrome occurs when yeast in the digestive tract causes the body to convert carbohydrates ingested through food into alcohol. This process usually occurs in the upper digestive tract, which includes the stomach and the first part of the small intestine.
Fahad Malik, lead author of the study and head of internal medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA), said these patients often have symptoms similar to alcoholics: smell, breath, sleepiness, changes in gait.
Experts believe that the antibiotics he took years ago changed his intestinal microflora and created conditions for fungus to grow in his body.
The researchers then used antifungal and probiotic therapy to help normalize the bacteria in his gut. He has remained on the regimen to this day, and it has worked.
Of course, there were times when he ate too much pizza or drank too much soda, his old illness relapsed, and his alcohol level spiked as if he had just had a drinking binge.
But about a year and a half into the study, he was able to eat and drink normally, but still occasionally tested his own breath alcohol level.
In what cases is alcohol concentration measurement likely to be incorrect?
Breathalyzers work in many ways - Photo: Shutterstock
A breathalyzer or breathalyzer is a device that measures the amount of alcohol in the air a person exhales, from which the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) can be calculated.
Normally, after drinking alcohol, the human body will absorb ethanol in the alcohol through the stomach lining into the blood. Because ethanol is volatile, when the blood is saturated, alcohol will pass through the capillaries in the alveoli of the lungs, a small amount of evaporated ethanol will diffuse into the alveolar sacs and mix with the gases in the lungs.
Many breathalyzers rely on a chemical reaction. Alcohol vapor in a person's breath reacts with an orange solution in the machine called potassium dichromate. Some machines calculate that when they receive breath, a beam of infrared (IR) radiation is transmitted through the air sampling chamber.
Many factors can affect the results of a breathalyzer test. These include other compounds in the breath, the temperature, and the health of the person being tested. Also, because body fat does not absorb alcohol, obese people tend to have higher BACs because their lean tissues contain more alcohol.
People with gastroesophageal reflux may also inflate their BAC values higher than their actual BAC, as aerosolized alcohol from the stomach that has not yet been absorbed into the bloodstream may be introduced into their breath through belching.
People with diabetes also often have falsely elevated results because their blood contains high levels of acetone, which breathalyzers can mistake for ethanol.
Can you "trick" a breathalyzer?
Dr. Michael Hlastala, a physiologist, biophysics and medicine major at the University of Washington (USA), spent time researching word-of-mouth methods that are said to be able to "trick" alcohol concentration meters.
A popular way to do this is to chew gum or mints. However, gum, mints, or sprays can only mask the smell, not change the amount of alcohol in your breath. Some refreshing mouthwashes even contain alcohol and can increase your BAC.
Some people say that breathalyzers are not very effective for smokers, which is also false. In fact, smokers have much higher levels of acetaldehyde (an organic compound) in their lungs than non-smokers.
A trick that was once widely used in the US was to lick or suck on a coin, as this was thought to "neutralize" the alcohol in the mouth, indirectly lowering the BAC value.
However, the air analyzed in these devices is from your lungs, not your mouth, so removing alcohol from your mouth will not affect the measurement results.
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