People often tell you not to drink on an empty stomach, but do you know why?
When you drink on an empty stomach it causes rapid gastric emptying, meaning that the alcohol that you have consumed has had little time to be exposed to the enzyme that is responsible for breaking it down (alcohol dehydrogenase). The alcohol then reaches your bloodstream faster, and you feel the effects of alcohol more quickly than if you had drunk on a full stomach.
Interestingly women produce half as much alcohol dehydrogenase than men, and this is one of the reasons that women have higher blood levels of alcohol than men after drinking the same quantity of alcohol.
Alcohol is very irritating to the gut lining, which is another good reason not to drink on an empty stomach.
So if you are planning to drink tonight, make sure you make time to eat first.
