Body fat and its affect on intoxication

Make text smaller Make text larger

Why do some people get drunk faster than others? There are a lot of variables that can affect how quickly someone feels the effect of alcohol after they’ve consumed it, but how much body fat they have plays a major role.

To be more precise, it’s how much body fat versus water their body is comprised of. This is because alcohol is soluble in water but moves very slowly through fat.

When you drink alcohol it tends to distribute itself mostly in tissues rich in water like muscle, instead of those rich in fat.

You can see this clearly if you pour any type of drinking alcohol into water it goes straight into solution. If you pour it in fat, the two will tend to lie separate.

This can account for why, two people who drink the same amount and weigh the same but have different proportions of body fat to water, may feel different effects and may also have different amounts of alcohol in their blood.

Think of a tall, thin man and a short, obese man both weighing 165 pounds. The short man will have more fat and less water making up his body than the tall man. If they both consume the same amount of alcohol, the short man will end up with a higher blood alcohol concentration. This is because the alcohol he drank was spread into a smaller water “space”.

This is also largely why women will reach a higher blood alcohol concentration than a man of the same weight when both drink the same amount of alcohol. Women’s bodies tend to have more fat and less water than men’s.

Make text smaller Make text larger

Take Our Poll