Device would help patients exhale alcohol out of their blood

Device would help patients exhale alcohol out of their blood


Our livers can only work so fast. They do all they can. But the organ clears alcohol out of our blood at a constant rate. A good hangover might make you wish your liver could speed things up. Our basic biology, however, won’t allow it.

Might our lungs be enlisted to help deliver us more quickly to sobriety?

While the liver clears most of the alcohol from our system, the lungs also help out on a smaller scale. They clear alcohol while eliminating carbon dioxide from our bloodstream.

A team of researchers report in a proof-of-concept paper published in the journal Scientific Reports that they’ve created a device that will eliminate alcohol three times faster than normal.

The idea is to have the patient hyperventilate, so that the lungs work harder and faster, thereby reducing alcohol levels on a quicker timeline. Of course, when we hyperventilate, too much carbon dioxide is removed from the blood. And that can lead to a fainting spell. Not good.

But the low-tech device gets around that problem. The size of a briefcase, it contains a tank that returns the carbon dioxide to a patient wearing a mask at the same rate it is exhaled. So, the symptoms of hyperventilation, such as dizziness, nausea and fainting, are avoided.

This could be a real bounty for physicians when confronted with patients suffering from severe alcohol poisoning. An estimated 3 million people die each year around the world from alcohol abuse.

Don’t expect to see the device marketed anytime soon as a cure for the garden-variety hangover. The device appears to be most effective at combating high levels of intoxication.

The best bet, as always, is moderation.

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