If a man and a woman who weigh the same consume the same amount of alcohol:
- The man’s BAC will likely be higher
- The woman’s BAC will likely be higher
- Their BAC levels would be the same
- None of the above
Answer:
B. The woman’s BAC will likely be higher if a man and a woman who weigh the same consume the same amount of alcohol.
Why option A, C and D are incorrect:
Explanation:
BAC is the abbreviation of Blood Alcohol Concentration. It is used to measure alcohol intoxication for medical or legal purposes.
Blood alcohol concentration is a percentage of alcohol in the bloodstream of a person. There are several factors which affect alcohol absorption in a person’s bloodstream. These factors are; gender, body weight, age, and health condition.
Women are likely to have a higher concentration of alcohol in blood than men can have. When a man and a woman consume the same amount of alcohol, the alcohol will probably stay longer in women’s body as compared to men body. It is because men have higher amount of water to dilute alcohol as compared to a woman. So, alcohol in women’s body stays longer is compared to men. It can be concluded that gender affects alcohol absorption in the human body even if they belong to the same age and have equal weight.
We can prove this by the formula for (EBAC).
An Estimated Blood Alcohol Concentration has this formula:
EBAC = 0.806 * SD * 1.2
———————– – (MR * DP)
BW * Wt
Where:
0.806 is the constant for body water in the blood;
SD – number of a standard drink containing 17 g of ethanol
1.2 – a factor to convert the amount in grams to Swedish standards
BW – body water constant (men – 0.58; women – 0.49)
Wt – body weight in kg
MR – metabolism constant (men – mean = 0.015; range 0.013-0.017 g/210L; while women – mean = 0.017; range 0.014-0.021 g/210L)
DP – Drinking period in hours
For instance: Both man and woman drank 3 Standard drinks; weighs 80kls; DP – 2 hr
man – EBAC = (0.806 * 3 * 1.2) / (0.58 * 80) – (0.015 * 2) = 2.9016 / 46.4 – 0.03 = 0.033
woman – EBAC = (0.806 * 3 * 1.2) / (0.49 * 80) – (0.017 * 2) = 2.9016 / 39.2 – 0.034 = 0.40