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Alcohol inhibited by exercise?

waterheart776

Bluelighter
Joined
May 7, 2008
Messages
419
Hey all,


I have a question: Does exercise (specifically, running 2 miles on a treadmill 3 hours earlier) lessen the effects of alcohol? I'm a one-drink wonder (laugh if you must, it keeps my bar tabs cheap!), and I noticed that, after having 1 beer (14 oz) with dinner tonight (which normally makes me tipsy), I noticed that I barely felt anything! My brain made the connection. Is there a connection? I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm asking.


--WH



(Mods, feel free to move this thread if I put it in the wrong place)
 
I don't think it would. Alcohol is absorbed by the stomach more so than the small intestine. So if you wanted to cut down on the effects then eating a slow to digest meal would soak up some of that booze and cause it to cross from the stomach into the blood stream slower.

What dictates how drunk you get is how much alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme you have in your liver. When the amount of alcohol coming in exceeds the amount of enzyme available the excess booze goes into the blood stream and causes you to get drunk.

I notice that when I have a full stomach I can usually drink 50% more to get the same effect. You're probably eating more on days when you exercise versus the days when you don't.
 
Perhaps the dopamine rush is harder to feel when you're already "zoned out" on runners high? :D

(stupid but who knows)
 
if it's that small of an amount of alcohol, it could be that exercise earlier in the day accelerated your metabolism and your body processed the alcohol more efficiently.

but who knows. that's just a top-of-the-head guess.
 
My intuition tells me that what the above poster said is correct.

If your metabolism is already increased from exercise, logic dictates that alcohol will too be metabolized faster.

That's why exercise is a good drinking deterrant, it gives you that natural high as well as makes alcohol less effective therefore lessening the desire to drink. Also drinking will negate some of the benefits of the exercise, rendering it fairly pointless!
 
In my personal experience, the opposite seems to be likely, i.e. the effect of alcohol is potentiated by exercise.
The more I exercise, the more I tend to feel the effects of alcohol.
 
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