Before you hit the town this weekend, consider this: The mixer you choose can actually make you more drunk. Turns out, drinking diet soda with alcohol actually boosts your buzz, according to a new study that will be published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical Experimental Research.
Researchers served participants one of three drinks: a diet soda and alcohol combination, a regular soda and alcohol combination, and a regular soda with a vodka scent. They then measured their breath alcohol concentration (BrAC). What they discovered: People who drank the diet soda and alcohol mixture had 18% higher BrACs than those who drank the regular soda and alcohol combo.
“When you consume alcohol with a diet drink, there’s nothing to digest in the stomach since there are no calories and no sugar, so the alcohol passes through the stomach and gets into the small intestine faster, and then into the bloodstream faster,†says Cecile Marczinski, PhD, study author and assistant professor at Northern Kentucky University. See, the sugar in a regular soda makes your stomach treat the drink like food—it digests it and delays it from entering into your bloodstream as quickly, she explains.
Your best bet? Choose a mixer that has calories. “There are concerns about limiting calorie consumption, which is reasonable, but I think it’s more harmful for your body, your brain, and your liver to have a higher blood alcohol concentration than just a couple of extra calories,†says Marczinski. Other ways to keep your blood alcohol concentration in check: Consume alcohol with food, and always alternate drinking alcoholic beverages with non-alcoholic beverages.
photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock
More from WH:
6 Steps to Avoid a Hangover
How Much Should You Really Drink?
Drinking and Exercise: How Alcohol Affects Your Body
Burn Fat
Fast! All it takes is 60 seconds a day to balance your body’s
chemistry and turn on your fat-burning furnace! Buy 60 Seconds to Slim today!