dehydrating effects of alcohol

[JamesEverton]

We're told that drinking alcohol dehydrates the body and that it's bad to drink when the weather's hot. If you were trapped in a wine cellar with unrestricted access to bottles of wine and some rudimentary dry foods (and no access to any other liquids) would the cummulative dehydrating effect of the alcohol kill you (and if so, roughly how long would it take)? Put aside the other bad stuff that would probably happen to your body.

[j2buttonsw]

Alcohol is a diuretic which will make you urinate. This is why you dehydrate. You could keep your urine and drink that in the wine cellar or perhaps make cocktails.

[ugly_bob]

I'm not sure, but I'm willing to volunteer to try it out to provide some answers for you.

[JudgeJ]

When you introduce alcohol to your body its reaction is to get rid of it. It does this via the kidneys. These effectively mix the alcohol with water and the resulting mixture is passed out in your urine. The kidneys obviously have to be provided with water to enable them to do this and there is not enough water contained in the wine to enable your kidneys to process the wine�s alcohol content.

This is why it is recommended that you drink as much water as possible before going to bed after a night�s drinking. Failure to do so results in a �parched� feeling in the morning.

In your cellar, at its constant moderate temperature, with no liquid or food intake and constantly resting, you might be able to survive for up to two weeks. However, if you ate anything (still without drinking) or if you drank the wine, this period would be considerably reduced. Your kidneys would extract any water from your body in their efforts to process the toxins in the food or the wine.

The symptoms your body may exhibit during this period before your death would firstly be rather like those of a hangover: Thirst; Vagueness; Discomfort; Impatience; Nausea; Loss of Efficiency; Dizziness; and Headache. However, you would rapidly exhibit more serious symptoms such as Breathlessness, Tingling in the limbs, Absence of Salivation, Indistinct Speech, Inability to walk and Cyanosis (turning blue due to lack of blood oxygen). Finally you would descend into Delirium, Dimming of Vision and Death.

[dawkins]

your best bet would be to cook the dry food in the wine. the alcohol would evaporate during cooking leaving you with food containing water.

D

[JudgeJ]

Better still, if you had cooking facilities, simply boil the wine to evaporate its alcohol content and drink the remainder. It would be tricky to ensure all the alcohol is driven off, however. Additionally, the heat produced in the enclosed space of the cellar would cause you to sweat, thus increasing your body's need for fluids.

Eating is not recommended when water is short because the water requirements needed for digestion hasten dehydration. You can last much longer without food than without water.

[remesses]

well it all depends on whether you like wine or not, and how quickly you would consume it?
you might die of chronic liver failure or alchohol poisoning long before you are slightly dehidrated but if you are gonna die in a wine cellar WHAT A WAY TO GO!-)