Raised Blood Alcohol May Protect the Brain!

You may have gained the impression from reading these articles that I am a proponent of drinking alcohol. Well, I am – in moderation. The new ‘rules’ for best health results are 1-2 drinks a day for women and 2-4 for men. More than that is bad – unless you are planning on acquiring a head injury. It appears that a drink or two may protect against death from a hard blow to the head!

There is a long-held myth that intoxicated trauma victims are more relaxed and, therefore, fare better than non-intoxicated patients. In the interest of public health, this myth should be discredited. However, a Canadian study has used trauma registry data to compare outcomes in severe head trauma patients (from blunt trauma injury) between those with no blood alcohol detected, less than 230 mg/dL of blood alcohol, and 230 mg/dL or more blood alcohol. There were over 1,150 patients in the study.

The low to moderate blood alcohol group did best: 28% mortality vs. 36% for the no alcohol and 45% for the high alcohol groups. Put another way, a low-to-moderate blood alcohol level was associated with a fatal outcome in 76 patients for every 100 deaths in no blood alcohol head injury patients.

The authors of the study suggest that “alcohol-based fluids may have a role in the management of patients with severe brain injury after they have been well resuscitated”. That’s the most that should be concluded from this study. It certainly is not an excuse for people to drink up to a 230 mg/dL level (0.23%) in the hopes of avoiding a lethal outcome of any accident they may have. The upper limit in the USA for getting behind the wheel is still 0.08%.