There are other patients who come in critically ill, and then there's CB because he drank rubbing alcohol.

It's good that he ended up being okay, but it's not good that the hospital had to use those resources during this pandemic. With supportive care, he came out of his coma and was sent home a day later. The chemistry says that these bonds are too hard to break in humans, so it's a matter of time for CB's body to work to eliminate it in his urine. The body can't break it down any further because of the balance part from the word iso. They should be good enough to disinfect surfaces outside the body in the right concentrations, which brings us back to CB.Īcetone - nail polish remover - causes mild nervous system effects. In high enough amounts in blood, acids can cause the heart to stop beating, meaning that no alcohols are good enough for curing COVID-19 inside humans. The acid part spills into the blood, causing acidemia, acid presence in blood. Instead of weak vinegar, formaldehyde gets broken down a second time to become methanoic acid, which causes blindness. This chemical was used to embalm mummies.įormaldehyde is a disinfectant, but it's also a poison. In the body, alcohol dehydrogenase turns methanol into formaldehyde. There were news reports of people in Iran drinking industrial-strength alcohol, a prominent one being methanol, methan- being the prefix meaning one. No benefit at all and all risk, so don't do it. The only analogy I have for inhaling really concentrated ethanol in hopes of disinfecting SARS-2 virus in your lungs is that it's like lopping off your leg to clip a toenail. But at 60%, that's going to negatively impact your brain, provided it doesn't damage the mucous membranes and lungs in the first place.Īlcohol inhalation misuse can cause acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is what happens in severe COVID-19 disease. It would bring a first pass of alcohol right to the brain. Inhaling it won't cure the disease either. Vinegar can be a disinfectant, but when it's weakened like this it isn't.ĭrinking 60% liquor won't cure anyone of COVID-19 if SARS-2 virus is already in the body. This is what causes someone to become red when they drink and it also causes hangovers.Īcetaldehyde isn't a disinfectant and the body wants to get rid of it, so acetaldehyde is broken down again into acetate, which is a very weak vinegar and also not a disinfectant. Anything with an alcohol group gets processed by this enzyme. But that disinfection happens outside the body, not inside.Įthanol's broken down by alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver. The CDC says that 120 proof, or 60% alcohol, can disinfect SARS-2 virus. How about 60% liquor, like vodka or rum? Well, the alcohol that humans drink for fun is different.

The acetone floating around will cause temporary brain problems, but it won't be concentrated enough to hit any virus in the lungs. Drinking a bottle of 91% rubbing alcohol will overload alcohol dehydrogenase in the liver. Human body has a large volume of water and blood, so that acetone is going to get diluted in that huge volume. Once something is broken down by the liver, it enters the circulation. Well, this brings us to a concept called distribution. Acetone is a disinfectant too, so why wouldn't it end up in the lungs to fight the virus? We've already established that drinking rubbing alcohol is going to pass it into the liver where it's broken down to acetone. If someone is exposed to SARS-2 virus and they get infected, it ends up in both of their lungs. When alcohol dehydrogenase processes isopropanol it becomes acetone, which is the chemical name for nail polish remover. To do that, it needs to make it easier to react with, in the hopes that a final product easily dissolves in water and can be collected by the kidneys to be urinated out. Both the name isopropyl alcohol and its structure not only tells us everything that we need to know about what's happening to CB, but it also tells us why drinking disinfectant isn't going to cure anyone of the virus. Oil doesn't mix with water at all, but alcohol groups interact with water because water is also made of hydrogen and oxygen. Iso- meaning equal, propan-, which is a prefix, denoting the quantity of 3 and referring to the number of carbons, and alcohol meaning a chemical moiety of 1 oxygen bound to 1 hydrogen. Rubbing alcohol's real name is isopropyl alcohol. She called for 911 as he's brought to the emergency room where we are now. His mom heard the noise and found him unconscious on the floor. As the minutes passed, CB started feeling dizzy. Someone on the Internet said it'll burn a little on the way down, but in his mind the benefits of disinfecting himself outweighed that burn. He wasn't going to be infected this time. Immediately after drinking the entire bottle, CB felt confident.

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