The Effects of Drinking on an Empty Stomach

Drinking on an empty stomach can have major effects on the body’s absorption of alcohol, resulting in faster and more intense effects like intoxication, as well as potentially more severe side effects. Whether you’re out for drinks with friends or indulging in a solo nightcap in the comfort of your own home, it’s important to understand how having an empty stomach alters alcohol’s impact on your system. This article provides a helpful overview of how drinking without food in the stomach affects alcohol absorption, digestive health, blood sugar regulation, and hydration.

How Drinking on an Empty Stomach Affects Alcohol Absorption

Different people’s bodies absorb alcohol at different speeds, and one of the things that can affect the speed of alcohol absorption is whether or not someone has food in their stomach when they’re drinking.

Because the majority of alcohol (75 to 85 percent) is absorbed in the small intestine, the faster that alcohol reaches the small intestine, the faster it will be absorbed. When you have food in your stomach, the alcohol you consume will not pass into the small intestine as quickly, slowing down the rate of intoxication.

As a result, when drinking on an empty stomach, you will likely experience the effects of alcohol intoxication more quickly and more intensely. It is especially dangerous to binge drink (defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism as consuming five or more drinks for a man or four or more drinks for a woman in two hours) on an empty stomach.

Impacts on the Digestive System

Drinking alcohol without food in your stomach is harmful to the digestive system. Prompted by recent increases in rates of GI cancers among younger adults, a study of more than 340,000 drinkers found that drinking alcohol without meals increased overall risk for GI cancers by 10 percent.

Drinking without food in the stomach can also increase the risk that alcohol will irritate the lining of the GI tract. This irritation can be extremely unpleasant and can lead to nausea and vomiting. There is also some research that suggests that alcohol consumption can cause the stomach to produce larger amounts of acid than normal, potentially leading to painful inflammation of the stomach lining (gastritis).

Effects on Blood Sugar and Hydration

Consuming alcohol on an empty stomach can increase your risk of experiencing low blood sugar (also known as hypoglycemia). This is because the liver is responsible for releasing glucose into the bloodstream to maintain normal blood sugar levels, and when the liver needs to process alcohol, it prioritizes this task and stops releasing glucose. The more you drink, the higher the risk of low blood sugar. This is especially dangerous for diabetics or other people whose bodies have issues with regulating their blood sugar levels.

In addition to its mental effects, alcohol is also a diuretic, which means it can result in greater fluid loss than normal by increasing the amount you urinate. With high enough alcohol consumption—particularly binge drinking—this can result in dehydration (one of the contributors to unpleasant hangover symptoms). In addition, drinking on an empty stomach can exacerbate this effect, particularly because it can increase one’s risk of vomiting from drinking. Vomiting can cause serious fluid loss, resulting in even worse dehydration than that already caused by drinking alone.

Supplements for Before and After Drinking

One of the most important ways to lower your risk of post-drinking symptoms is by making sure to avoid drinking on an empty stomach. In addition to this healthy habit, consider these supplements to help your body manage and process the alcohol you consume.

Before You Drink: Take Capsulyte’s PREGAME

Using a powerful combination of ingredients with efficacy backed by science, PREGAME supports the body’s ability to process alcohol itself. The key ingredients:

• NAC, which has been found to mitigate symptoms following alcohol consumption
• Clovinol®, an antioxidant that can reduce negative feelings following drinking by about 55 percent
• Siliphos®, a compound derived from milk thistle that may protect against alcoholic cirrhosis
• DHM, an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compound

After You Drink: Take Capsulyte’s HYDRATION

It’s common knowledge that because alcohol is a diuretic, hydration is one of the most important factors in minimizing hangover symptoms. Rather than hydrating with water alone, use HYDRATION for a healthy dose of Hydra 4G™: an optimal blend of sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium that the body requires for countless normal processes.

HYDRATION also includes:

• B vitamins, which are believed to support neurological function, blood cell formation, and energy metabolism
• Zinc, an important mineral for immune function
• Liposomal Pureway C™, which offers antioxidant and immune supportive properties

To learn more about how to manage post-drinking symptoms, head over to the Capsulyte blog for more science-based recommendations.