Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)

I thought I'd provide a blog with a slight public service announcement bent during this holiday season while everyone is merrily drinking. In digging through my notes from the U.C. Davis Introduction to Winemaking, I located the lecture on The Health Effects of Wine. In this lecture, we learned about blood alcohol levels and their physiological effects on the body:

More importantly, we learned how to calculate our own intoxication level based on our weight and the number of glasses of alcohol we consumed.

For example, for a hypothetical person who weighs 150 pounds and consumes 3 standard glasses of wine, the BAC will be (4 x 3)/150 = 0.08% or the criteria for being "under the influence". However, alcohol is being absorbed as well as metabolized and factors that affect the BAC include:

• food consumption reduces absorption rate
• higher alcohol concentration increases BAC
• sparkling wines increases BAC
• gender affects metabolism; women have lower gastric alcohol dehydrogenase levels which reduces metabolism

Alcohol is typically metabolized at a rate of 0.1 gram per kilogram of body weight per hour. Converting grams into ounces and pounds, a ball park figure for how much alcohol is being metabolized can be calculated from the following equation.

Therefore, our hypothetical 150 pound person will be able to metabolize 150/250 = 0.6 standard drink per hour.
Here is a link to an online BLOOD ALCOHOL CALCULCATOR
Have a safe and happy holiday!