Digestive liquor hinders digestion

Digestive liquor hinders digestion and brings no relief after eating.
Contrary to widespread opinion, alcohol has no digestive effect but retards the digestive process. This is what Swiss scientists have in their own account of the first investigations on the subject „Alcohol and digestion of fatty food“ found out.

A digestive schnapps after a rich or fatty food is very popular with many Germans. The schnapps alleviate the feeling of fullness, prevents stomach aches and promotes digestion, so the underlying assumption. As part of their study, Swiss researchers have now proven otherwise. The digestion is not accelerated by the alcohol consumption, but delayed, the scientists report to Mark Fox from the University Hospital Zurich in the journal „British Medical Journal“ from their study results.

Digestion rate decreases as the amount of alcohol increases
The scientists had on 20 volunteers (6 women, 14 men) aged 23 years to 58 years, the effects of the relationship between the intake of a cheese fondue and the parallel consumed beverages, such as wine, black tea, water and a final liquor, on the digestive system examined. Depending on the drinks taken, the processing of the meal was expired at different rates, the fastest being among those who had not drunk any alcohol, according to the scientists. The more alcohol the volunteers consumed during or after the meal, the slower their body had digested the meal, said the researchers from the University Hospital Zurich „British Medical Journal“.

Digestion is fastest without alcohol
The volunteers each ate 200 grams of melted cheese with 100 grams of bread as part of the study, part of whom drank one glass of white wine and the others drank the same amount of black tea for dinner. Then one and a half hours after eating a schnapps or the same amount of water was served. In order to understand how quickly the ingested meal was digested, the scientists had labeled the cheese with special molecules, whose degradation could then be followed by breath tests. Thus, the researchers were able to observe the rate of digestion in the volunteers. According to the scientists, digestion was slowest for those who consumed wine and schnapps, followed by volunteers who drank wine and then water. For the tea drinkers, who chose a schnapps after the meal, however, a clear break in the digestive rate had been observed after the schnapps. The digestion process was fastest for the participants, who only received tea and water as cheese fondue, according to the Swiss scientists.

Myth of digestive liquor was refuted
The fact that the digestive liquor after eating still has a noticeable effect, according to the researchers to Mark Fox, explained by the effect of alcohol on the stomach muscles. These are loosened and relaxed by the schnapps, whereby the stomach widens and does not feel so full anymore. For digestion, the schnapps, however, the current results, rather obstructive. In the long term, you suffer more from alcohol indigestion than without alcohol, the conclusion of the Swiss scientists. The myth of a digestive effect of schnapps after high-fat food is thus finally eliminated. (fp, 16.12.2010)

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Image: Klaus Steves