Blood Alcohol Content Calculation
Blood alcohol content can be roughly estimated using a mathematical approach. Mathematical estimations can be useful for calculating a blood alcohol content level that is not currently testable, or a level that may be present in the future. While there are several ways to calculate it, one of the most effective ways is to simply measure the total amount of alcohol consumed divided by the total amount of water in the body—effectively giving the percent alcohol per volume water in the blood.
Gender plays an important role in the total amount of water that a person has. In general, men have a higher percent of water (58%) than women (49%). This fact alone strongly contributes to the generalization that men require more alcohol than women to achieve the same blood alcohol content level. Additionally, men are, on average, heavier than women. The more water a person has, the more alcohol is required to achieve the same alcohol:blood ratio, or blood alcohol content level. Further, studies have shown that women's alcohol metabolism varies from that of men due to such biochemical factors as different levels of alcohol dehydrogenase (the enzyme which breaks down alcohol) and the effects of oral contraceptives.
It is not strictly accurate to say that the water content of a person alone is responsible for the dissolution of alcohol within the body, because alcohol does dissolve in fatty tissue as well. When it does, a certain amount of alcohol is temporarily taken out of the blood and briefly stored in the fat. For this reason, most calculations of alcohol to body mass simply use the weight of the individual, and not specifically his water content.
Read more about this topic: Blood Alcohol Content
Famous quotes containing the words blood, alcohol, content and/or calculation:
“If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Men can intoxicate themselves with ideas as effectually as with alcohol or with bang and produce, be dint of serious thinking, mental conditions hardly distinguishable from monomania.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
““To my thinking” boomed the Professor, begging the question as usual, “the greatest triumph of the human mind was the calculation of Neptune from the observed vagaries of the orbit of Uranus.”
“And yours,” said the P.B.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)