Dr Karl Kruszelnick science guru and TikTok star has hit us once again with the knowledge we really need after revealing that drinking alcohol with diet fizzy gets you wasted quicker than regular soda.
Discover our latest podcast
It’s all about the calories
In a recent video, Dr Karl revealed that the typical rum and diet soda has about the same amount of alcohol as a regular rum and soda. The trick is that it has half the calories. He explained that when you slam back your booze, it hits the stomach before it makes its way to the small intestine which is where the alcohol gets absorbed. Dr Karl continued:
Your stomach expels the liquid at a fixed rate of around two-to-three calories a minute. So a rum and diet coke will get out of your stomach, into the next section, where it gets absorbed faster, and the blood alcohol level will go up higher and it will do it sooner than a rum and regular coke.
What the Aussie doctor means is that with diet fizzy, your body doesn’t need to spend as much time dealing with calories, leaving it free to deal with the good stuff. But it probably won’t make your hangover any easier.
@drkarl DRINKING ALCOHOL WITH DIET SOFT DRINK MAKES YOU DRUNKER. Ever wondered why? Here’s the answer #getonthebeers#drkarlkruszelnicki#drkarl#shoey
♬ original sound - Dr Karl
Diet soda may just push you over the limit
Dr Karl’s alcoholic facts have also been backed up by numerous studies. One conducted by Cecile Marczinski, a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Texas Health Science Center explained that it’s not diet soda that gets you more drunk, but sugar that slows the metabolism down.
Marczinski’s study attempted to find out if mixers could be the element that pushed a drinker over the legal limit. When mixing alcohol with diet soda, blood alcohol levels BrAC reached a peak of .091. But, when subjects used a sugary mixer and the same amount of alcohol, their BrAC took on an average of .077.
So, if you are planning on a big night out then you may want to book an Uber for later or make sure you have a sober driver with you as diet soda might just push you over the limit.
However, if you’re enjoying a boozy night in during lockdown, you’re probably in the clear.
But before you go too crazy with the diet Coke and lemonade, participants of the study (eight women and eight men) didn’t report feeling any changes in their intoxication levels when it came to diet soda over regular soda. So maybe just stick with regular soda, it probably tastes better anyways.
