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It would be great if you could immediately sober up after a night of partying. Everyone has their own hangover cure, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be easier not to have a hangover in the first place. A simple new machine called ClearMate could help with this.
Canadian researchers say the device can eliminate alcohol from your breath to help people become sober up to three times faster. The team says it could be a life-saving intervention for patients with alcohol poisoning.
Inhale and exhale
Most people are familiar with the fact that alcohol is processed in the liver. Although this organ does an amazing job of eliminating alcohol from your body, it does so at a steady pace. In other words, you can’t speed up the rate at which your body processes toxins.
When someone arrives at the hospital with a potentially fatal case of alcohol poisoning, doctors are forced to keep it as stable as possible while the liver does its job. However, this delay can lead to poor results in severely intoxicated patients.
What most people don’t know is that the lungs also play a small role in eliminating alcohol from the system. As alcohol-containing blood reaches the lungs, some of the alcohol escapes with each exhalation. While this is far less efficient than processing alcohol in the liver, researchers believe it could be a lifesaver.
When a person hyperventilates or breathes faster than normal, alcohol can be eliminated more quickly. Unfortunately, hyperventilation over a long period of time causes its problems. Because the body loses too much carbon dioxide in the process, hyperventilation often causes people to pass out.
This is where ClearMate comes in.
Meet ClearMate
To use the lungs as an effective secondary route for eliminating alcohol, researchers had to get creative. They built a machine that bypasses the body’s natural defenses against hyperventilation in a safe and effective way.
First, a simple oxygen mask is applied to the intoxicated person. This is linked to a supply of oxygen and carbon dioxide. This might seem surprising considering that carbon dioxide inhalation is usually not a good thing. However, remember that hyperventilation causes people to lose a lot of carbon dioxide. In this case, replacing some is actually an important part of the process.
Breathing in carbon dioxide also causes the person to hyperventilate without having to do it manually. This takes advantage of another mechanism in the body. When carbon dioxide levels are too high, hyperventilation occurs naturally. By artificially increasing the levels, ClearMate can force a person to hyperventilate without causing the symptoms associated with low carbon dioxide levels.
Joseph Fisher, one of the researchers and authors of a recent study covering the work, says, “With every breath, it [the ClearMate] it is designed to allow the normal amount of carbon dioxide to escape and any excess is returned on the next breath. “
“This is all done simply by a mechanical valve, so it’s foolproof, with no need for electronics or computers,” he adds.
The study is published in Scientific Reports.
Success test
During the development process, Fisher and his team worked with a handful of healthy volunteers. They were told to drink 80-proof vodka mixed with water until they were slightly intoxicated.
The researchers then watched the participants as they recovered naturally. Next, they repeated the experiment, this time having them use ClearMate for up to 30 minutes. During each trial, the researchers monitored the participants’ blood alcohol levels with both a breathalyser and direct blood samples.
The team found that when participants used ClearMate they became sober three times faster than they naturally did.
While the small sample size may make people wary, this isn’t ClearMate’s first successful demonstration. Last year, Fisher’s company, Thornhill Medical, got approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that allows the machine to be used in emergency rooms. It currently serves as a treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning.
However, Fisher and his team believe the applications go far beyond that.
They say the machine could also be used to treat patients who have ingested methanol (e.g. by drinking window cleaner) or polyethylene glycol (from homemade alcohol). As these conditions can be deadly if not treated properly, ClearMate has the potential to save lives.
Interestingly, Fisher notes that the team’s approach is not new. Scientists know that some alcohol can be eliminated from the lungs for nearly a century. However, it seems that no one has thought about using the mechanism until now.
He says: “The method is so simple and obvious that even looking at it no one recognizes its potential. Hide in plain sight. I don’t know how to explain it otherwise. “
Use in the real world
Moving forward, ClearMate will need to get FDA approval before it can be used as a treatment for alcohol poisoning. However, the results so far are promising. If the machine gets the green light, it could quickly become a staple in emergency rooms, intensive care units and ambulances around the world.
Of course, consumers are wondering if ClearMate will ever make it. For now the answer is no.
While the machine looks effective, it needs to be closely monitored to be used safely. This means that a bunch of drunk friends shouldn’t use it over each other. While the idea of sobering up much faster is great, a device like the ClearMate probably won’t hit the consumer market for some time, if ever.
That said, there is a possibility that someone could develop similar consumer-oriented technology. As Fisher said, the method has been hidden in plain sight for years. There could certainly be a way to make the technique safe enough for ordinary people.
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