What is Blood Alcohol Content (Blood Alcohol Concentration)?
Blood alcohol content is the concentration of alcohol in a person’s blood stream. Blood Alcohol content is also known as BAC or Blood Alcohol Concentration.
Blood Alcohol Content is commonly used to measure the level of intoxication for medical and legal purposes around the world. Blood Alcohol Concentration is usually measured in mass per volume (as in grams of alcohol per liter of blood).
Is Blood Alcohol Content an accurate measure of intoxication?
On average, Blood Alcohol Content is an accurate measure of alcohol intoxication. On an individual basis, BAC is does not accurately measure intoxication because of variations in people’s weight, sex and body fat. There are also some questions about the accuracy of measuring blood alcohol, specifically alcohol breathalyzer accuracy and alcohol urinalysis accuracy.
In many instances a woman will have a higher Blood Alcohol Concentration than a man, even if they consume the same amount of alcohol. The amount of water in the body has a large effect on the Blood Alcohol Content reading given by breathalyzers and lab based blood alcohol concentration levels. In general men have a higher percent of water per pound (58%) than women (49%). Since men have more water per pound, alcohol is diluted further which will result in a lower blood alcohol content reading for the man. Additionally, Men are generally heavier than women and studies have shown that a woman’s ability to metabolize alcohol may also be affected by different levels of enzymes that break down alcohol as well as the effects of oral contraceptives.
What is the blood alcohol limit?
Legally speaking the blood alcohol limit can change from country to country. In the United States the current legal blood alcohol limit is .08%.
From a medical or health standpoint the blood alcohol limit can vary greatly. People can develop a high tolerance for alcohol but a BAC of .20 usually results in very serious intoxication. It is generally accepted that that a blood alcohol concentration of .40 is the lethal dose for alcohol. This means that blood alcohol content of .40 will result in death for 50% of adult humans. There are reports of extraordinary high blood alcohol content, but the accuracy of these reports cannot be guaranteed.
In December 2004 a man who was admitted to the hospital in Plovdiv Bulgaria where his blood alcohol concentration was measured at .914%. It was additionally reported that a 45 year-old man was admitted to the hospital in Skierniewice Poland in March 2009 with a blood alcohol content of 1.23%. Though both of these men reportedly survived, it is generally expected that a blood alcohol content reading at these levels would result in death.