I have a question regarding Plenny shake’s interaction with alcohol. It is known that drinking on a full stomach lessens alcohol’s absorption into the blood and also makes it more gradual. Drinking on an empty stomach means that the alcohol gets absorbed straight away and to a bigger extent.
I once had a very busy Friday evening and I decided to drink 800kcal worth of Plenny shake as I was going to meet up with friends to play poker and drink alcohol. I didn’t have time for any other meal. Long story short, I got quite wasted and felt like drinking on an empty stomach. I was just wondering if anyone has looked into this topic and might know how Plenny shake affects alcohol’s absorption.
If no one has looked into the topic, I could possibly carry out some tests. I have a high quality breathalyser and I drink once a week. As I live in Northern-Europe, where alcohol is expensive, then pre-drinking before meeting up somewhere is quite common. I could possibly make myself a Plenny shake during one evening and then measure my alcohol levels after every vodka cocktail and I’d do the same on some other evening after eating a normal meal.
Hey Karl,
Sounds like an interesting experiment. Try to contact the scientific team of Jimmy Joy, their numbers must be increased recently (I read hiring more of them was one of the reasons that lead to the increase in prices), they might carry out such a study that could be published in a scientific journal.
I would be interested of course if you would do such a non-invasive experiment on yourself.
But a quick look up on pubmed shows the following and answers your question:
1- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1705129/pdf/canmedaj01475-0029.pdf
(expert review article, is seen as scientifically -ok, not the best- evidence)
Here you can read that the reviewer explains that when you have not eaten, alcohol rushes through the stomach and is absorbed in the small intestine, which causes peak values in the blood alcohol level which translates into a higher intoxication (drunk).
When you have eaten before drinking, the alcohol will stay in the stomach and be absorbed through the gastric wall (and duodenum) which is a smaller process and causes less peak values.
2- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2764113
(an experimental study)
Shows in human test subjects that alcohol is absorbed fastest when only the liquid meal was consumed, but slower when consumed with or after a solid meal.
What is also said in this study (not with so many words) is that the stomach empties much quicker when only liquid meal is consumed.
If you would add up these two studies, you get an interesting answer for the FAQ:
Drinking a liquid meal does not protect you against getting drunk on a saturday-night.
Because liquid fluid passes quickly through your stomach, which means that your stomach is empty all the time when you drink liquid fluids. So the alcohol you consume travels quickly to the jejunum and is absorbed quickly, which causes a spike in your blood alcohol level.
Welcome to the Jimmy Joy community Mazaka! Your points are correct. Although our products provide you all the nutrients that a solid meal would also do, being in a liquid form makes their main digestion happen faster and latter (on the small intestine). The proteins, carbs and fats are blended in a way that you can easily drink them, instead of being in their normal complex structure where your stomach would be busy breaking them down into smaller absorbable pieces. I will check with the rest of the team if there is any interest in having a study about the interactions between the Plenny shake and alcohol.