Carbonated drinks and climbing
John Ross
climbers?
Some of the climbers that I hang out with claim that carbonation in your
body is bad news at higher altitudes. So I've laid off of any
carbonation for the past year. But I don't know if it's made a
difference or not.
Any medical basis for this?
--
John Ross
jr...@novell.com
Dingus Milktoast
John Ross wrote:
I've taken plenty of beer at altitude with mostly good results. Those little
cans of Red Bull are a kick in the pants too. I think there might be some
JP4 in there for good measure! And don't forget the bubbly for the summit
party.
Of course I heard of a military pilot that was drinking a coke while flying.
They had to depressurize suddenly and a large bubble blew his head off. I
swear! Clean off! Like the guy in Scanners. It was a gruesome mess. They had
to call in Janitor in a Drum!
DMT
Tim Brewton
to hydration. A de-fizzed cola would be better for taking advantage of
the combo of water, sugar, and caffeine. YMMV
I Climb Hi
perspire. The more you perspire the more you need water to replace it. Its a
terrible cycle. I know! they call me the Mountain Dew (wait <<swallow>>) kid.
Gotta go, need another can, and I need it now!
Dave MacLearn
> there's a diuretic effect; don't know what the net effect is in regard
> to hydration. A de-fizzed cola would be better for taking advantage of
> the combo of water, sugar, and caffeine. YMMV
Um, it's actually the caffeine that has a diuretic effect, not the
carbonation itself.
--
dave (at) climber.net
Karl Lew
>carbonation itself.
Damn. Ain't that a pisser?
--Karl
Tim Brewton
for some friends. Any idea why they wanted to eliminate the
carbonation? (superstition?)
Rob B.
I recently saw a story on the news about how nutritionists are concerned
that teenage women are drinking too much carbonated drinks because it
leaches calcium from the system, which may lead to a better chance of osteo
perosis (sp?). Also, a while back, a friend of mine said carbonated drinks
"take your wind away". I'm not totally sure what that means, other than the
hypoxia notion stated in the original post.
Jacek Maselko
I have never hear of any medical evidence, but I've drank plenty of cokes,
etc. at altitudes up to 6000 meters and besides the fact they make you burp,
there doesn't seem to be an effect, good or bad.
Jacek
John Ross wrote in message <367A7CCA...@novell.com>...
>Can anyone tell me if carbonation (like in soft drinks) is bad for
>climbers?
>
>Some of the climbers that I hang out with claim that carbonation in your
>body is bad news at higher altitudes. So I've laid off of any
>carbonation for the past year. But I don't know if it's made a
>difference or not.
>
>Any medical basis for this?
>
>--
>John Ross
>jr...@novell.com
>
>
ECC
"useful" so far. Here's my take on the carbonation deal. No, I'm not a
doctor, please feel free to vehemently disagree with any of this:
1) What is carbonation? Carbon Dioxide (CO2) dissolved in whatever liquid
you're talking about. There is always some in whatever you've got. The
point of carbonated drinks is to artificially elevate the dissolved CO2 by
keeping the product under pressure (Henry's law - solubility increases with
pressure). Open the cap and .... poof ... bubbles, as the extra CO2 comes
out of solution and back into gas form. Drink up immediately for a
pleasant fizzy sensation. A short time later the CO2 will have resumed its
equilibrium level for room temp and pressure, and your drink is "flat."
2) Is putting dissolved CO2 into your stomach a problem at altitude? No
more so than at sea level. You don't "digest" CO2, so what goes in must
come out. If you swallow it in liquid form (in solution) you will shortly
burp it back up in gas form. Or........ bummer for your tentmate(s), it
may find some other way out later. At altitude, the equilibrium solution
level will be lower, which means nothing more than that you've got more
burping to do than at sea level. Putting carbonation into your stomach
does not put CO2 into your bloodstream.
3) Might there be other concerns? Yep, as you climb higher, the relative
pressure inside the bottle increases, making it more likely to make a mess
in your pack. And those bottles are heavy. Good excuses to drink up before
leaving base camp!
4) So why do marathoners/bike racers de-fizz their soda before drinking?
Um, slam a coke and then jog around the block and the answer will become
clear... not so for the stuff working its way back up your esophagus!
Athletes drink Coke (r) and such for two very simple reasons: 1) SUGAR 2)
CAFFIENE. They de-fizz it first for one very simple reason: burping too
easily turns to puking when you're working at the upper limits of your
aerobic capacity.
If Don Whillans et al didn't prove it to you that "carbonated beverages" and
climbing can get along just fine, then you'll never believe it!
Have a frothy weekend!
Eric Coppock
rata...@zdnetmail.com
>
> John Ross wrote in message <367A7CCA...@novell.com>...
> >Can anyone tell me if carbonation (like in soft drinks) is bad for
> >climbers?
> >
> >Some of the climbers that I hang out with claim that carbonation in your
> >body is bad news at higher altitudes. So I've laid off of any
> >carbonation for the past year. But I don't know if it's made a
> >difference or not.
> >
> >Any medical basis for this?
> >
> >--
> >John Ross
> >jr...@novell.com
> >
YES, there is a medical basis for this. I don't have the reference on hand,
but here's what I remember from my trip to Denali - Altitude Acclimation 101:
Your blood has a bunch of gasses dissolved in it. As you move up in
altitude, this gas has to exit because the pressure goes down. You're
breathing a lot, so it's not a real problem, unless you blow it diving and
end up with the bends.
But I digress. One of the gases that comes out is CO2. When it does, it
drives your blood toward the alkaline, and this can screw with your
metabalism. Your kidneys have to excrete something or other to compensate
and it takes a few days to catch up. If you're lucky. Diamox is a drug that
encourages you to excrete that something or other.
This has absolutely nothing to do with what you eat or drink, so yeah, your
friends are SAND-BAGGING you.
Jratus "BSing chemistry better than I crack climb" Utahnus
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Gleshna
>that teenage women are drinking too much carbonated drinks because it
>leaches calcium from the system,
Its the phosphate or caffeine that supposedly does this. The amount might very
well be extremely small.
Bob
Gleshna
Yep and easy to estimate how much water you need to drink after you have been
diuretictized.
Bob
Gleshna
>Caffine from soda is a diuretic. The more you drink the more you will
>perspire
Perspire? I looked up diuretic in the dictionary - makes you urinate. They
didn't mention anything about perspiration?
Bob
Dave MacLearn
> for some friends. Any idea why they wanted to eliminate the
> carbonation? (superstition?)
Oh, I can understand that. Could you imagine chugging back a liter of
Coke and going for a run?
Slosh, fizz, slosh, fizz, slosh, fizz, slosh, *barf*
--
dave (at) climber.net
I Climb Hi
right from biology class I think its called urea. I learned that diuretic is
the removal of fluids (didn't say how). Hey if this is wrong blame my private
high school biology teacher and what a hospital nutritionist recently told me.
Personally I can tell you that the more water I drink the more I piss and the
more caffine I drink the more I sweat.
Scott Presho
> Your blood has a bunch of gasses dissolved in it. As you move up in
> altitude, this gas has to exit because the pressure goes down. You're
> breathing a lot, so it's not a real problem, unless you blow it diving and
> end up with the bends.
> But I digress. One of the gases that comes out is CO2. When it does, it
> drives your blood toward the alkaline, and this can screw with your
> metabalism.
And, if I remember correctly, this is because CO2 in your blood coming in
contact with the water in your blood produces some carbolic acid. When the
level of CO2 drops, so does the level of carbolic acid, leaving you with a
lower level of acid content and, hence, a higher level of base (alkaline)
substances in your blood.
>Your kidneys have to excrete something or other to compensate
> and it takes a few days to catch up. If you're lucky. Diamox is a drug that
> encourages you to excrete that something or other.
> This has absolutely nothing to do with what you eat or drink, so yeah, your
> friends are SAND-BAGGING you.
Getting back to the original point, carbonated beverages (pop for those of
you on the west coast, soda for the east) has carbolic acid in it
(remember the CO2 and water thing?) which, if I remember correctly,
increases the acidity of ones blood.
This leads me to believe that drinking pop/soda at altitude might have a
positive effect. I have no idea how much you would have to drink to
counter the effects of altitude, but then who is going to haul such a
quantity of soda/pop to an altitude where it will be needed (or useful)
and what this has to do with cragging at low altitudes I don't know
(nothing probably) but I just covered this in my 8th grade science class
so I figured I would spew it forth anyway since it is now
Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzah/Ramadan/ etc. break (in that order of
demographic breakdown in my school) and those cute little adolescent folk
have been quaffing huge quantities of the stuff which has a major negative
impact on my ability to do my job because of the wiggle factor due to the
sugar so I thought I would add to this thread. (Do I qualify for a
"longest run-on sentence" distinction or what?)
>
> Jratus "BSing chemistry better than I crack climb" Utahnus
Yeah, but it isn't as much fun...
Scott
CoreyFong
>> altitude, this gas has to exit because the pressure goes down. You're
>> breathing a lot, so it's not a real problem, unless you blow it diving and
>> end up with the bends.
>> But I digress. One of the gases that comes out is CO2. When it does, it
>> drives your blood toward the alkaline, and this can screw with your
>> metabalism.
Then get off the beer and drink wine. Wink to you.
Guy Humphrey
> Can anyone tell me if carbonation (like in soft drinks) is bad for
> climbers?
>
> Some of the climbers that I hang out with claim that carbonation in your
> body is bad news at higher altitudes. So I've laid off of any
> carbonation for the past year. But I don't know if it's made a
> difference or not.
>
> Any medical basis for this?
>
> --
> John Ross
> jr...@novell.com
Carbonation opens the value between your stomach and your small
intestines, so whatever is in your stomach spends less time there.
-Guy
Scott Presho
> John Ross wrote:
>
> > Can anyone tell me if carbonation (like in soft drinks) is bad for
> > climbers?
> >
> > Some of the climbers that I hang out with claim that carbonation in your
> > body is bad news at higher altitudes. So I've laid off of any
> > carbonation for the past year. But I don't know if it's made a
> > difference or not.
> >
> > Any medical basis for this?
Guy Humphrey <g...@fc.hp.com> responded:
> Carbonation opens the value between your stomach and your small
> intestines, so whatever is in your stomach spends less time there.
Just curious: Why does carbonation open the pyloric valve?
Scott
Rick
Guy Humphrey <g...@fc.hp.com> responded:> Carbonation opens the value between your stomach and your small
> intestines, so whatever is in your stomach spends less time there.Just curious: Why does carbonation open the pyloric valve?
Scott
Carbonation hastens passage of alcohol from the stomach, also increasing speed of absorption. I'm curious if the same is true for, perhaps, soda pop or other carbonated beverages.
--
Rick "ramble on" Hanks
**Remove "NoSpam" from e-mail address to reply**
Scott Presho
<"nitehawk"@(nospam)televar.com> wrote:
> FYI but not really relevant. The pyloric is sensitive to the presence of
> alcohol and tends to get "stuck" in the closed position when large amounts of
> alcohol are consumed. When this happens (pylorospasm) the alcohol stays in the
> stomach, often causing sufficient irritation to induce vomiting. Additionally,
> it may serve as a self-protective mechanism, preventing what might
otherwise be
> lethal doses of alcohol from entering the small intestine. How this relates to
> the carbonation in, say, beer, I know not. What I do know is that I was never
> capable of drinking enough beer to find out.
> Carbonation hastens passage of alcohol from the stomach, also increasing
> speed of absorption. I'm curious if the same is true for, perhaps, soda pop or
> other carbonated beverages.
alcohol stays in the stomach, often causing sufficient
> irritation to induce vomiting. Additionally, it may serve as a self-protective
> mechanism, preventing what might otherwise be lethal doses of alcohol from
> entering the small intestine. How this relates to the carbonation in, say,
> beer, I know not. What I do know is that I was never capable of drinking
> enough beer to find out.
> <BR> Carbonation hastens passage of alcohol from the
> stomach, also increasing speed of absorption. I'm curious if the same is
> true for, perhaps, soda pop or other carbonated beverages.
So from this I assume that the alcohol that enters the bloodstream,
causing the enebriation, does so through the stomach? Or does the pyloric
allow small amounts of stomach contents through, thus allowing some
alcohol to enter the intestine where it is passes into the bloodstream?
Again, just curious.
Scott
Jeremy Pulcifer
explain something. I've read that alchohol is absorbed in the stomach,
but if what you say is true, then beer, champange, and other carbonated
drinks would hit the small intestines quicker than, say, whiskey or
vodka. I get an immediate reaction drinking beer (either a headache
or dizziness) while I can drink most under the table if it's hard liquor.
Perhaps this is why?