alcohol dissolving your brain?

[pofacedhoe]

seeing as your brain is made of quite a lot of fat and ethanol can dissolve fats is it possible that drinking alcohol strips tiny amounts of lipids all over the place that over time has a significant effect when not replaced due to constant excess intake?

cos the way i see it its a solvent slowly taking tiny bits from the brain. i also see it as having a poisonous metabolite, but what i'm interested in finding out is, is there a significant effect from the fat dissolving angle also playing a part?

 

[endotropic]

seeing as your brain is made of quite a lot of fat and ethanol can dissolve fats is it possible that drinking alcohol strips tiny amounts of lipids all over the place that over time has a significant effect when not replaced due to constant excess intake?

cos the way i see it its a solvent slowly taking tiny bits from the brain. i also see it as having a poisonous metabolite, but what i'm interested in finding out is, is there a significant effect from the fat dissolving angle also playing a part?

Well it's known that chronic alcoholism can cause a demyelination syndrome, basically removing the fatty insulating tissue that allows neurons to rapidly transmit signals. From what I've read this is due to changes in osmolarity rather than stripping it away like a solvent would.

Magnetic resonance imaging findings in substance abuse: alcohol and alcoholism and syndromes associated with alcohol abuse.

.2% BAC is about the highest concentration most people can get, so the question is would .4 proof ethanol dissolve fats the same way a concentrated solution would?

 

[nAON]

I would think that the concentration of it in your blood would be too low for it to do so - the principle behind dissolving being that the solute molecules have to surround the chemical being dissolved. Though this is speculation, no doubt it could still damage lipid membranes through other mechanisms.

 

[sekio]

On contact with skin, ethanol and other solvents can certainly defat tissue. I don't think 0.2% ethanol in a saline solution is a very strong solvent though... I would expect this to be more of a cocnern with things like ether, etc. but inhalants exert most of their toxicity through reactive metabolites I think.

 

[pofacedhoe]

thanks you guys!