Does Drinking Diet Coke Make You Drunk Faster
You know those "what your drinks order says about you" memes that always call out vodka-diet-coke drinkers for being hot messes? Well, now there's scientific evidence that proves it.
That's right: sugar-free mixers and diet versions of your favourite fizzy drinks have been scientifically proven to get you up to 25% drunker than their full-fat versions when partnered with spirits.
Think of it like this: you know how we all should line our stomachs with some food before we go out on the razz so we don't get too drunk too fast and ruin the night for everyone else by being refused entry to all of the clubs and eventually standing outside the chip shop at 11pm in floods of tears for no apparent reason? (Speaking hypothetically, obvs…)
WELL. It turns out that the sugars in that pre-dinner meal stop your body from absorbing the sugars in the booze too quickly, which in turn stops you from getting you totally blotto before 8pm. The sugars in a full-fat mixer do the exact same.
"Mixing your alcoholic beverage with a sugar-free soda will make you feel drunker, faster," said Cecile A. Marczinski, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, who founded the research.
Getty Images
In the study, Marczinski gave 16 volunteers vodka mixed with regular lemonade, diet lemonade or a placebo over three separate drinking sessions. When the volunteers drank the sugar-free drinks, a breathalyser showed their breath alcohol was up on average 18% higher than the participants that drank their vodka with regular lemonade. This even went up to 25% in some participants.
Not only were they more trollied, but their reaction times were slower, and they had a harder time judging how drunk they truly were.
"Your stomach empties more slowly with sugar in your system but when there is no sugar, the alcohol goes directly into your blood stream," Marczinski said. "Drinking alcohol without any mixer probably would have the same effect as no sugar."
That's right: a single vodka with diet lemonade has the same effect on your body as a neat shot of vodka. Yikes.
While a diet mixer might seem like an effective way to watch your waistline while also getting more drunk, it actually takes a much larger toll on the body, says Marczinski.
"We know that higher alcohol levels are dangerous to your brain and liver, so keeping your alcohol levels in the moderate range should be more important than trying to save 100 or so calories.
"Young women may be particularly vulnerable as they frequently use diet mixers with alcohol and they also restrict food intake when drinking to control calorie consumption and, ultimately, body weight."
As always, it's important to drink responsibly. Be DrinkAware.
Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox.
SIGN UP
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
Does Drinking Diet Coke Make You Drunk Faster
Source: https://www.delish.com/uk/cocktails-drinks/a33430513/sugar-free-mixer-alcohol-research/