Alcohol Toxicity

[Big L]

Does anyone have any ideas what the least toxic alcohol is? Vodka, beer, wine, etc?

[dsade]

Ethanol is ethanol.

[KingMeso]

Ethanol is ethanol.

- 'nuff said.

[Big L]

I should have elaborated in my first post, since I basically expected that response. I very rarely drink alcohol (in moderation once every month or two) so I am not trying to compare toxicity for this purpose. However I am curious as I have read that various oral steroids are significantly more liver toxic than others, and wondered if the same is true with alcohol in any way.

I was browsing through the web and found a webpage talking about the methanol content of alcohols versus ethanol.

Bourbon whiskey has a concentration of 26mg/l, while vodka has a concentration of 3.9mg/l. Also, aspartame has methanol in it and in a 2L bottle of diet soda, there is approx. 123mg of methanol. I read this here: diet soda sweetener aspartame [ NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel, E951, Benevia ] toxicity research: Murray 2004.10.11 rmforall
about 1/3 of the way down.

Then I read elsewhere that once methanol is converted to aldehyde in the body it becomes very toxic (more so than ethanol).

Anyway, I have absolutely no science background and don't really understand this or know how significant these amounts are, I'm just wondering if anybody else has any insight on this, and if there are any implications re: apartame...

[Trauma1]

I should have elaborated in my first post, since I basically expected that response. I very rarely drink alcohol (in moderation once every month or two) so I am not trying to compare toxicity for this purpose. However I am curious as I have read that various oral steroids are significantly more liver toxic than others, and wondered if the same is true with alcohol in any way.

I was browsing through the web and found a webpage talking about the methanol content of alcohols versus ethanol.

Bourbon whiskey has a concentration of 26mg/l, while vodka has a concentration of 3.9mg/l. Also, aspartame has methanol in it and in a 2L bottle of diet soda, there is approx. 123mg of methanol. I read this here: diet soda sweetener aspartame [ NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel, E951, Benevia ] toxicity research: Murray 2004.10.11 rmforall
about 1/3 of the way down.

Then I read elsewhere that once methanol is converted to aldehyde in the body it becomes very toxic (more so than ethanol).

Anyway, I have absolutely no science background and don't really understand this or know how significant these amounts are, I'm just wondering if anybody else has any insight on this, and if there are any implications re: apartame...

This is a good read:

http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic19.htm

[Big L]

This is a good read:

http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic19.htm

Thank you, interesting stuff. I guess the alc./vol percentage is the amount of ethanol - ie 40% vodka, is 40% ethanol. Hence the response of "ethanol is ethanol."

Thanks for the replies.

[Trauma1]

Thank you, interesting stuff. I guess the alc./vol percentage is the amount of ethanol - ie 40% vodka, is 40% ethanol. Hence the response of "ethanol is ethanol."

Thanks for the replies.

Exactly - 80 proof = 40% ethanol by volume.