Beer after poisoning

When asked whether it is possible to drink beer in case of poisoning, any doctor will answer negatively.

Diet in case of poisoning imposes a taboo not only on strong alcoholic beverages, but also on low-alcohol drinks, including beer.

In addition, in case of poisoning, you should not drink milk containing caffeine and carbonated drinks.

Why is it forbidden to drink beer in case of poisoning?

Foodborne infections lead to nausea, vomiting, stomach and intestinal cramps, increased gas production in the intestines and diarrhea. The mechanism of development of these symptoms is associated with exposure to toxins that have entered the systemic circulation.

Ethanol crosses cell membranes and, getting into the bloodstream, can penetrate into almost any cell of the body. You tell me how much of that alcohol is in the beer!

Indeed, the content of ethanol (ethyl alcohol) in beer ranges from 4 to 14%, but one should not forget about carbon dioxide...

Why do people get drunk quickly from champagne? Due to CO ₂ bubbles, which accelerate the absorption of ethanol from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood.

So the ethyl alcohol of beer aggravates the load on all systems and organs suffering from food poisoning , primarily the liver and kidneys. The carbon dioxide contained in beer not only enters the systemic circulation, but also, expanding the vessels of the gastric mucosa, stimulates gastric secretion, increases flatulence, which already occurs in case of poisoning, and also disrupts intestinal motility.

In addition, vomiting and diarrhea in acute poisoning dehydrate the body, and to combat the imbalance in the water-electrolyte balance, appropriate therapy is carried out - to replace the lost fluid and salts. And beer is known to have a diuretic effect that can be very harmful to patients with poisoning.

For the same reasons, medical professionals give a negative answer to the question: is it possible to have beer after poisoning. Read more - Diet after poisoning .

How did beer save a patient from methanol poisoning?

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam is recognized as the second country in terms of the number of excessively alcoholic citizens. And a serious problem in this country - where alcohol is produced in large quantities in an artisanal way, sold on the market and bottled in bars - is poisoning with methanol (methyl alcohol).

In the first half of January 2019, many European publications, referring to VietNamNews,  [1]reported that a patient in Vietnam was saved from methanol poisoning, which was in alcohol. On December 25, 2018, three patients in a coma were taken to a hospital in Huong Hoa County, Quang Tri province (as it turned out, the men had been drinking on the eve of Catholic Christmas). Methanol was detected in their blood.

Doctors know that the antidote for methyl alcohol poisoning is 5% ethyl alcohol, which delays the metabolism of methanol to formaldehyde and methane (formic) acid. Usually ethanol in combination with a 5% glucose solution is injected into a vein in the first three days of poisoning. [2]

Since three patients required first aid and treatment for methanol poisoning at the same time, the hospital, according to local doctors, did not have enough pure medical ethanol. Considering the critical condition of the victims, one of them, having calculated the amount of ethanol in the beer, began to inject it into the stomach through a tube for several hours (at the same time cleansing the kidneys by dialysis). In total, five liters of beer or one and a half dozen standard cans were used. And the amount of ethyl alcohol contained in it was enough to save the patient's life, although, as reported, one of the hospitalized died.

And this case is not the only one: in the fall of 2008, more than a dozen people in the Vietnamese capital were saved from fatal methanol poisoning in the same way.