Acute alcohol intoxication

What is  a hangover?

Acute alcohol intoxication, veisalgia or, more commonly, the hangover, refers to those difficult mornings after a night out.

With a variety of symptoms, this state occurs in the hours following excessive alcohol consumption, during the elimination phase. It reflects the toxic effects of alcohol on the body, and in particular on the liver and the brain.

This phenomenon can occur after just one drink or more.

The most common symptoms are: a feeling of weakness, tiredness, difficulty concentrating, nausea, vomiting, stomach ache, stomach cramps, headaches, hypersensitivity to noise and light, an intense feeling of thirst, a drop in alertness and memory.

Initially, the absorption of ethanol is an important step that takes place mainly in the small intestine. With the exception of bone and fat, it spreads evenly through all tissues, following the movement of water, and crosses the foeto-placental barrier. The main route for eliminating ethanol is the liver.

It relies on two saturable oxidation steps that work at full capacity as soon as the blood alcohol level reaches 0.10 g/L:

Oxidation of ethanol into acetaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase, then of acetaldehyde into acetic acid by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase.

Many factors can alter the absorption and/or metabolism of ethanol:

Genetic factors or medication, for example. The analytical methods used to detect alcohol impregnation rely on measuring levels in exhaled breath or in the blood.

For road safety purposes, measurements are taken in exhaled breath, with a legal limit of 0.25 mg/L of exhaled air.

We speak of alcohol intoxication when the threshold of 0.5 g/l of blood is exceeded, i.e. around 20g of alcohol.

Lighter than water, its density of 0.79 makes it possible to calculate the amount of ethanol contained in a drink. The alcohol content, or alcohol by volume, is the percentage by volume of pure ethanol in a liquid mixture.

So a standard 10 cl glass of wine at 12% alcohol contains 12 mL of pure ethanol, i.e. 12 × 0.8 (0.79 rounded) = 9.6 grams of alcohol.

Each glass or ‘‘alcohol unit’’ therefore contains 10 grams of pure alcohol.

Bearing in mind that ethanol metabolism is saturable and works at full capacity as soon as the blood alcohol level reaches 0.10 g/L.