New invention helps people get sober by exhaling alcohol

It is a real killing.

Canadian researchers have introduced a life-saving invention to alleviate severe alcohol poisoning, using a simple breathing apparatus that requires no special training. The device can help a drunken person detoxify three times faster than they would otherwise.

Binge drinking is responsible for 95,000 deaths in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, including traffic accidents and alcohol poisoning.

Part of the reason alcohol is such a big killer in this country is because the human body, especially the liver, processes alcohol at a rate that cannot be artificially accelerated. The more drunk you get, the more drunk you stay – which is how alcohol poisoning occurs. When the amount of alcohol in the blood exceeds the rate at which the liver can filter out these toxins, sufferers can pass out and eventually lose control of their respiratory function.

In a medical setting, people with alcohol poisoning are often pumped out of any excess alcohol, then made comfortable and monitored for lung and heart function while the liver finishes its work.

However, the new device, consisting of a gas mask connected to an oxygen and carbon dioxide supply, uses basic physiological means to reduce drunkenness. While the liver does most of the heavy lifting, the lungs also play a role. When the alcohol-soaked blood reaches the lungs, usually supplying a new batch of oxygen, the respiratory organs are also faced with a wave of intoxicant. This is part of the reason breathalysers work and why your breath stinks of alcohol (besides the fact that you may also need to brush your teeth).

Their invention then attempts to boost this usually fixed process by forcing the individual to breathe more, faster – what we call hyperventilation. Of course, hyperventilation itself can be dangerous because our body is deprived of the necessary carbon dioxide. This is the reason why some people pass out when they panic and breathe quickly. So doctors devised a system that would essentially promote hyperventilation without the discomfort, providing them with just enough carbon dioxide to dampen these physical triggers.

“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,” said study author and inventor Joseph Fisher, anesthesiologist at University Health Network of Toronto. In a statement to Gizmodo, Fisher explained, “This is all done in a simple way by a mechanical valve, so it’s foolproof – without the need for electronics or computers.”

Fisher and his colleagues, whose work was published in Scientific Reports Thursday, recruited five volunteers with impeccable health to get drunk on cocktails of 80-proof vodka mixed with 500 milliliters of water. During a two-day study period, participants were observed drinking and then sobering up naturally and through the device, which the researchers found helps detoxify three times faster than without the gas mask.

“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.”

Researchers have long known about the function of the lungs in detoxification, but Fisher may be the first to bring the process to marketable term – going so far as to register his invention under the brand name ClearMate.

The Food and Drug Administration has previously granted his company, Thornhill Medical, permission to manufacture the device for use in emergency rooms in the United States, as a treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning. It could also be used to remove other toxins such as methanol or polyethylene glycol, both of which are associated with “contraband” alcohol.

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