German researchers looked at the effects of alcohol consumption during airplane flights. The results showed that toasting outdoors can be dangerous to your health.
To celebrate a trip with friends or simply to have fun, there is more than one reason to have a glass of alcohol during your plane ride. However, imagine, drinking alcoholic beverages in such a context is not trivial, particularly for people with respiratory pathologies, reports a study published in the scientific journal Thorax.
This is because air pressure and oxygen levels decrease as the plane climbs in altitude. These phenomena also have an effect on the human body. They increase our cardiac frequency. In this new study, the researchers wanted to demonstrate the effects of alcohol consumption on the heart rate and sleep of passengers.
Alcohol affects heart rate at high altitude
To do this, they brought together 48 people aged 18 to 40 and divided them into two different groups. The participants of the first group were subjected to ordinary atmospheric conditions and were invited to sleep in a laboratory specializing in sleep disorders. While in the second, the volunteers slept in a cabin simulating an altitude level of 2,438 meters above sea level. Finally, the scientists invited half of each group to consume alcohol and fall asleep.
During this time, the researchers analyzed the guinea pigs’ heart rates and blood oxygen saturation (SPO2) levels. Result ? “The combination of alcohol and simulated cabin pressure caused a drop in oxygen saturation levels to just over 85% on average. As well as a compensatory increase in heart rate at nearly 88 beats per minute during sleep”reports the publication.
Conversely, people who slept in the same place without having consumed alcohol saw a drop in their SPO2 level was 88% and their heart rate was 73 beats per minute.
As for people who drank under normal atmospheric conditions, they also saw their SPO2 rate decrease by 95% with 77 beats per minute.
Finally, volunteers who did not drink alcohol and slept in ordinary atmospheric conditions recorded lower oxygen saturation levels blood by 96% and a heart rate of 64 beats per minute.
Consequences on the quality of sleep
After studying the effects of alcohol on heart rate, the researchers also measured the consequences on the quality of sleep. Indeed, they note a reduction in the quality of sleep: “the deepest sleep (stage N3 of the sleep cycle) was reduced to 46.5 minutes under the combined effect of alcohol and simulated pressure from cabin to cruising altitude”, they specify.
In patients who slept in normal atmospheric conditions, the duration recorded was, on the contrary, twice as long, or 92 minutes in total.
Reduce your alcohol consumption
Furthermore, the scientists point out that this study was carried out on young people, who were also in good health. They assume that risks would likely be higher in older people or with cardiac pathologies.
Faced with such results, the authors of this experiment invite practitioners, passengers and aircraft crew to further be interested in the potential risks of this alcohol consumptionand even “to consider modifying the regulations to restrict access to alcoholic beverages on board planes.” And to remember that “Cardiovascular symptoms represent 7% of in-flight medical emergencies.”
You may also be interested in:
⋙ Sleep: this gesture should be banned if you want to sleep well
⋙ Dry January: alcohol also contains substances that would be beneficial for the heart
⋙ Researchers invent a gel against the effects of alcohol
⋙ Addictions: can animals also be alcoholics or drug addicts?
⋙ How to distinguish between alcoholism and dipsomania?
