Simple invention helps you to be sober while exhaling from alcohol

Canadian scientists say they have found a new way to deal with life-threatening alcohol poisoning – by helping people literally exhale alcohol into their systems. Their device, which is the designed to allow people to hyperventilate safely, has been found to accelerate the elimination of alcohol in healthy volunteers three times faster in a small pilot study.

Usually, toxins like alcohol are largely broken down by the liver. The liver can suffer many punishments, but the rate at which it metabolizes alcohol is constant, which means you can’t speed up the process at times when the amount of alcohol in your body is sufficient to be fatal or seriously harmful. Most of the time, all doctors can do when a person is passed out is make sure their breathing and bodily functions are stable until the liver can finish its job.

But the lungs also play a small role by naturally removing alcohol from our bodies, something you have probably noticed if you’ve ever smelled alcohol on someone’s breath. This happens when blood saturated with alcohol reaches the lungs to be replenished into fresh oxygen. Some of the alcohol in the blood, with carbon dioxide, is then expired.

This process can be accelerated by hyperventilation, or the act of rapid breathing. The problem is, when we hyperventilate, we also lose too much carbon dioxide. To prevent this from happening, our bodies have evolved to make us seriously uncomfortable or even lose consciousness when we hyperventilate for too long (which is why a person who visibly panics may pass out).

According to study author and inventor Joseph Fisher, the the device has found a way to interrupt this trigger while ensuring the safety of the person. The patient is fitted with a gas mask, which connects to a supply of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The mixture of gases they breathe causes them to hyperventilate, while the device returns enough carbon dioxide to them so that the body does not unintentionally panic.

“With each breath it is designed to allow the normal amount of carbon dioxide to escape and any excess is returned on the next breath”, Fisher, anesthesiologist and principal investigator at the University Health Network in Toronto, said in an email. “It’s all done in a simple way by a mechanical valve, so it’s sillyproof – without the need for electronics or computers. “

To test the apparatus, Fisher and his team recruited five healthy volunteers and told them to become mildly intoxicated (the drink of choice was 80-proof of vodka mixed with 500 milliliters of water). In a series of experiments conducted over two days, they were monitored as they both sobered up naturally and using the device for half an hour. Their alcohol level was measured by breathalyzer and by blood samples taken throughout the experiment. Compared to the natural method, the volunteers appeared sober three times faster using breathing device.

The team’s conclusions were published in Scientific reports on Thursday.

Although the study sample is very small, which means its results should be viewed with caution, the device itself is not untested. Last year, the Fisher company cofounded, Thornhill Medical, won marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the device (ClearMate brand) for use in emergency rooms in the United States as a treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning. Fisher says the same device could be used to treat both conditions as well as others in the future, including more toxic forms of alcohol poisoning, as in people who consumed windshield washer fluid (methanol) or contraband alcohol (polyethylene glycol).

According to Fisher, the fundamental fact that our lungs help eliminate alcohol in our body has been known for almost a century. But he doesn’t know why no one so far has thought of trying to exploit this process.

“The method is so simple and obvious that even looking at it, no one recognizes its potential,” he said. “Hiding in plain sight. I don’t know how to explain it otherwise.

While this device can be used safely by someone who is aware of alcohol poisoning, it may show even more promise for people who are faintedwhile being safe for healthcare workers. “The higher the concentration of alcohol in the blood, the more effective the method,” said Fisher. “If the patient is unconscious, a tube can be placed in the lungs to protect the patient’s breathing, and the method can then be applied manually.”

Although the ClearMdevice eaten won FDA approval for carbon monoxide poisoning, plus data will be needed for it to be accepted as a treatment for alcohol poisoning. To that end, Fisher and his team hope that other researchers will be ready to test the device in real-life.world settings, such as emergency rooms and intensive care units, and publish their own results.