How to eat well: The drinking dilemma

Alcohol is always a difficult topic for nutrition and health professionals. The drinks industry remind us to drink responsibly, which of course we should, but after a glass or two, the very nature of alcohol means that it’s harder to remember what responsible actually means. This is all the more apparent with the festive season so imminent when alcoholic indulgence seems to be the norm.

Let’s start with some facts — around 20 per cent of a drink’s alcohol content is absorbed directly through the lining of the stomach, the rest being absorbed in the intestines. The rapid absorption of alcohol means that within around 20 minutes of the first drink, the concentration of alcohol in the blood rises and its effects can be felt.

Alcohol is eliminated from the body in three ways: around 10 per cent is eliminated early via breath and urine, leaving the vast majority to be dealt with by the liver, which even when working efficiently, is limited in what it can process. In the liver, alcohol is broken down by a series of enzymes until it becomes water and carbon dioxide.

A healthy liver takes around 45 minutes to break down a single shot of spirit, or an average glass of wine. Drinking anything more in that period leads to an increase in blood alcohol content, and to give you an idea of what this means, a blood alcohol count of 0.08 per cent is the legal limit for driving while five per cent usually results in a coma.