Would maintaining a blood alcohol content between 0.15-0.25% have any antibiotic properties?
If so, could alcohol potentially treat a life threatening infection when no other antibiotics are available?
If not, then what kind of blood alcohol content would be needed (survival of the human aside) to start to see antibiotic effects?
WAG…but I think I read once that in order for alcohol in your bloodstream to have any antibiotic effect at all, you would need such a high level that you would be long since dead…
How about alcohol passing down your throat?
Honestly, I have very little doubt that it’s completely psychosomatic but, still, I do always feel that a regular intake of good whiskey helps me to speed through the recovery process when I have a sore throat.
I have very little doubt that it’s completely psychosomatic but I would LOVE to be told that there is legitimate medicinal merit.
Actually, many cough syrups contain some ethanol. Remember, alcohol is a solvent and anasthetic, so while it might not cure, it’ll help relieve the symptoms.
Woo hoo! Validation!
Alcohol is an antiseptic, not an antibiotic. It kills many bacteria, viruses, fungi, sperm, and other human cells when it is in prolonged topical contact with said cells. It’s not particularly effective on pathogens in the mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, or the rest of the GI tract though, as it doesn’t stay in contact with them long enough to kill most common infectious agents. Nor is it useful for genito-urinary tract infections, or nasal infections. There might be some benefit for it in select cases of otitis externa (swimmer’s ear) but other agents are known to be more effective.
About the only legitimate medical uses for ethyl alcohol are to treat acute methyl alcohol poisoning, and to try to slow or arrest premature labor in an emergency, if more effective and safer drugs are not available.
Drinking alcohol to fight an infection is not a useful activity. If one wishes to drink alcohol, one should not rationalize that it has health benefits, as the minimal hypothesized cardiac benefits that come from mild to moderate alcohol consumption are far outweighed by the overall proven detriments of mild to moderate alcohol consumption.
(slight hijack)
I always wondered the same about alcohol and urinary tract infections. Would it help to have (rather dilute) alcohol passing through the urinary tract?
No. See my earlier post.
Does wine actually help a cough? (To suppress it while you’re drinking it, I mean.) My mother has a terrible allergy cough that before they found a good allergy medication for her would only be calmed by a glass of wine - I always figured it relaxed her throat or something. Or made her not care if she coughed, I guess.
Slight change in gears, since we have an M.D. present – is booze a decent topical antiseptic for cuts, scrapes, etc? Measurably better than hot water or some other sensible control substance?
Could Everclear or Bacardi 151 Rum be used to prep/irrigate an incision site for some kind of freakish emergency surgery – like “lost on a desert island” surgery?
(my bolding)
I have to ask - who did that study?
Here’s one study. Inhibition of premature labor: a multicenter comparison of ritodrine and ethanol - PubMed
There are others.
I’d opt for soap and water for most cases of superficial injury. For a case of road rash, many compounds would be preferable to ethanol, which kills human tissue when used at similar strengths to the concentrations needed to kill pathogens.
So no, I’d not recommend ethanol over most topical antiseptics in use out there, which kill pathogens without killing human tissue.
But yes, everclear and similar could make an emergency antiseptic. Or an emergency accelerant for starting fires.
Aside from QtM’s authoritative answers, let us also collectively recall that there is something called a “liver” in all of us that stands between the liquids you pour down your throat, and the liquid that eventually pumps through and/or out of your body as blood, urine or what have you.
So, your question implies that you’re willing to explore the idea of injecting some dilute alcohol solution directly into your urethra. :eek:
Isn’t that an additional potential medical use of alcohol – rhizotomy to deaden nerves in cases of chronic pain?
Ethanol is better known for causing neuropathy than curing it
Thanks. I see from the study that the ethanol was delivered intravenously.
What a surprise!
That’s the traditional administration route for medical ethanol, used also to treat methanol poisoning. That way the dose can be reliably given per body weight, without worrying too much about absorption rates from the GI tract.
Well, that does show that ethanol causes nausea and vomiting even when not given orally. Many folks have averred (wrongly) that it’s what’s in your stomach, or alcohol’s effects on your stomach, that cause the N/V of acute intoxication & hangover.
It is the rare wine that does *not *contain sulfites.
So maybe it’s the SO[sub]2[/sub] compounds in the wine that affect your mother’s cough, although I’ve never heard of sulfites having this effect on people.
Most people find sulfites taste bitter and harsh, attributes not usually associated with things that calm throats and supress coughing. And of course, some people are deathly allergic to sulfites, due to their airways swelling shut…
Anyway, the scientist in me wants to give your mum a double-blinded test the next time she has a cough. To wit, having her drink a normal wine with sulfites, and one that’s had its sulfites removed.
Have a go at that, will you? And report back here with your results. 