Assisted Hyperventilation: A New Way to Treat Alcohol Intoxication
Alcohol impacts just about every bodily function, from brain function and circulation to nail growth. At high levels, alcohol intoxication can damage organs and lead to death.
According to the World Health Organization, approximately three million people around the world die due to alcohol intoxication each year.
About 90% of alcohol is processed through the liver at a constant rate, and the only way to speed this up is dialysis. Thus, the only treatment for alcohol intoxication thus far has been to supply oxygen and intravenous fluids, and medications for cardiac support as needed.
The new approach simply adds the lungs to the process: simply by hyperventilating, three times more alcohol could be excreted via the lungs than the liver.
“But you can’t just hyperventilate, because in a minute or two you would become light-headed and pass out,” explained Dr Fisher, anaesthesiologist and senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute (TGHRI). The decrease in CO2 in the bloodstream is what causes the sensation of light-headedness, as well as tingling in the extremities.
To get around this, the researchers created a simple device which returns the same amount of carbon dioxide to the lungs as was exhaled, no matter the volume of air.
“It’s [a] very basic, low-tech device that could be made anywhere in the world: no electronics, no computers or filters are required. It’s almost inexplicable why we didn’t try this decades ago,” said Dr. Fisher.
Source: Medical Xpress
