Dr. Tom Shellhammer

If you're making margaritas, you've got both sugar and salt there that are kind of

have an interplay with alcohol.

And the cumulative effect kind of impacts how you're going to feel that evening or the next morning.

Jackie, what do you think about tolerance in terms of like for a person who is a regular consumer of alcohol versus someone who isn't?

I think these effects can be very different.

Yeah, exactly.

That's exactly where I was going to.

If you're mixing caffeine and ethanol, that's what we call an amplifying combination, but it's a catalyzing combination.

And that's one reason why we don't see...

caffeinated alcoholic drinks anymore on the market because they can be potentially dangerous.

If you don't really realize the alcohol level that you're consuming or the caffeine that you're consuming, you're kind of cranking both of those up and you keep yourself in kind of a dangerous spot.

Yeah, I'm thinking less about like a biochemical interaction, but more of like a

um sort of physiological maybe lifestyle interaction um sugar is one of these these molecules that as humans we love right we're just we're primed we're like little hummingbirds in some respects so we love sugar it sort of stimulates that like i like it button um so that kind of can potentially move people into consuming more alcohol than that they had realized particularly drinking very sugary drinks alcohol itself is as a diuretic so it has a dehydrating effect uh

sugar kind of amplifies that as well.

So you're kind of moving yourself into this area where you're going to be very prone to the effects, the detoxification effects of alcohol.

You've got this ethanol detoxification, but you also have this dehydration that you can feel like you're drinking a lot.

And in fact, you are, but your body's not hydrating.

It's actually dehydrating.

You're just kind of turning into like a little human raisin.

Yeah, you're correct, Jane.