Drink 8 bottles of wine, you'll be unharmed if hit by Mike Tyson

Top boffins in Texas believe they will soon provide solid proof of an astonishingly useful biological fact: that if you drink eight bottles of red wine you can be punched in the head by a professional heavyweight boxer and it will do you no harm at all. We're paraphrasing slightly, of course. The researchers, based at the UT …

[sisk]

New sport?

So then can we expect to see drunken boxing go from rarely practiced Kung Fu style to full fledged combat sport?

[Anonymous Coward]

So rather then wear a seatbelt

I need to drink 8 bottles of wine..........

<---- no really

[Anonymous Coward]

Humour

/______________________________________________I

\

[Asgard]

I don't know about no harm but...

If I drank 8 bottles of red wine, my brain would be so mashed, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference from me being punched in the head by a professional heavyweight boxer.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Better still,

give the eight bottles of wine to the boxer. He would then miss, or simply fall over (and claim "You're the bessshht palllll I've EVER had !!!")

[TeeCee]

Eh?

I reckon that if I drank 8 bottles of red wine in one go I wouldn't notice if I was hit by an articulated truck, never mind Mike Tyson.

As for the aftereffects, well, both terminal alcohol poisoning and being briefly passed over by 40 tonnes of crap on regroovable tyres have the same effect here.

[Adze]

Drink 8 bottles of wine and take a punch to the head...

...and you won't feel any ill effects. Well... you won't feel it at the time anyway but the hangover will be a killer!

[Marky W]

Sorted for Saturday night then!

I stopped reading after the first paragraph. Hope I didn't miss anything.

[maclovinz]

Ahh, the benefits of liquor...

....weed's still illegal though!

[Mike VandeVelde]

while weed is actually the better medecine

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6812#Neuroprotection

[jonathanb]

Drink 8 bottles of wine and

your insides would probably explode with the 6 litres of liquid imbibed in one go, and you would probably suffer from alcohol poisoning, and be in an alcohol induced coma. Being punched by Mike Tyson won't make much of a difference after that.

But then again, after the 7th bottle, would you even be physically capable of drinking the 8th?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really

Never estimate the power of a good set of kidneys.

The liquid will not explode you. I have done 22 half a liter bottles of lager (weak one - under 5%) for a bet in high school (to lose it as the bet was set at 24). That is 11 liters in one afternoon (a few hours).

However, the amount of alcohol in 8+ bottles of wine should be lethal even for someone with a liver of steel and good kidneys. That is 750ml of alcohol which is several times the lethal dose and wine does put your kidneys in an overdrive the way beer does.

[TeeCee]

Re: Not really

Absolutely correct regarding the weak lager.

Many years back, a mate and I proved conclusively that it is impossible to get drunk on Hofmeister. Drinking Hofmeister continuously for a 48 hour period we found that once a certain level[1] of mild inebriation is reached, equilibrium is achieved. The alcohol is metabolised as rapidly as it is physically possible to process the liquid content via the kidneys to make room for more crap lager.

We did toy with the idea of a secondary experiment involving drinking the Hofmeister, waiting a while for the alcohol to take effect and then forcing regurgitation to see if this improved matters. Unfortunately for scientific method, the requisite drinking of more Hofmeister put us off this one and we just got hammered on Thunderbird instead.

[1] By sheer coincidence, the level that allows you to sit and chat about nothing of importance for 48hrs while drinking Hofmeister.

[Anonymous Coward]

"would you even be physically capable of drinking the 8th?"

All depends on how you're, ehem, "drinking" it...

: /

"Investigators say a woman caused her husband's death by giving him a sherry enema, leading to alcohol poisoning.

The enema caused his blood alcohol level to soar to 0.47 percent -- almost six times the legal intoxication limit in Texas, a toxicology report showed.

..."We're not talking about little bottles here," Turner said, "These were at least 1.5-liter bottles.""

http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Woman-accused-of-giving-husband-lethal-sherry-1165596.php

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't encourage them

In the local city centre, outside the Weatherspoons pub, the majority of patrons on a Saturday night think they're Mike Tyson anyway with 8 pints of Stella in them.

Don't encourage them with science!

Is this in anyway connected with the theory that drunk drivers suffer less injury after massive accidents because the drink impairs their muscle reflexes, such that on impact their muscles aren't tensed up?

[Anonymous Coward]

probably

I know two guys, who in college rolled their car up into a little ball, and the got out, walked down the road to a gas station, bought a case of beer to get change for the phone, and then called to report the accident.

If they'd been sober (not withstanding that they wouldn't have crashed the car) they'd have been killed.

[Rampant Spaniel]

But does it protect your ears??

I guess if you hit him with the bottles?

[Anonymous Coward]

Had the unfortunate experience of seeing this

Years ago, following a VW Beetle along a country road. Blotoo bloke came crashing out of the undergrowth right into the path of the VW. He ramped the bonnet, his head hitting the windscreen with such force it shattered (the windscreen, not his head) and he sailed clean over the Beetle, ending up literally spinning like a top in the road in front of us. VW driver stopped, mainly because his girlfriend got a piece of glass in her eye, which was worse damage than skunk-like matey who was discharged from hospital the following day with a few stitched in his head.

Pint, for obvious reasons.

[Asiren]

But until it becomes publically available

we should all drink copious amounts of red wine every time we have a head injury.

´

Beer, as it's the only alcohol we have here... (A w(h)ine icon!)

[Annihilator]

Daily Mail

Has this been lifted straight from the Daily Mail, except with some facts added back in? I look forward to seeing the headline tomorrow with none of the caveats. Another one to add to the Daily Mail kill-or-cure website anyway. (Google it!)

[Charlie van Becelaere]

Did I

misread this boffin's name?

"The boxers will have their brains assessed using MRI scans and other boffinry tools, allowing Gatson and his colleagues to quantify the protective benefit of the grape."

Surely it must be Gaston who is measuring the benefits of the grape, non?

(pint icon as there is no oenological equivalent available)

[karl 15]

No So Good

If someone got hit in the head, then drank alcohol,

how would ER know what they were looking at, brain damage, or drunkenness

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Friday, it's five to five...

Wait - is this why I had the urge to punch someone in the head everytime stu francis said 'Oooh, I could crush a grape'?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one

will be more than happy to assist in the human trials phase of this vitally important research

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad luck.

You got assigned to the control group. Now, stand over there with no wine while Mike Tyson smashes you in the face half-a-dozen times....

[ratfox]

Well-known fact

To all players of World of Warcraft. Drink alcohol, and the level of enemies drops. Scientifically proven.

[Turk3y]

Makes a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster seem tame

the PGGB does have a more interesting tag line tho

"is like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick."

I suppose if you have the 8 bottles of wine before hand you might actually survive ;)

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

But there are voluntary organizations

on most planets to help you rehabilitate from drinking a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

[mmm mmm]

Red wine

You can be punched or be punched in the head by just about anybody by drinking less than half of that and the best part is, you won't remember a bvloody thing about it until some either reminds you of it or you wake up with a cracking headache and a painful face.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Lewis, how about an update..

... on the smouldering radioactive pit of "triumph" that they're now proposing the best thing to do is turn it into a never-go-back-there-for-ten-thousand-years radioactive waste-dump?

ObTopic: It's easy to think that was a triumph if you've drunk eight bottles of wine or been concussed by a weighty blow to the head. Well, you've made your own sarcophagus, you can lie in it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Drink 8 bottles and you'll be unharmed if hit in the head by Tyson

However, Iron Mike might bite your ear off!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had 8 bottles of...

...wine, then my boxers would probably come off.

[Tasogare]

For all the pointless alchoholic jokes....

Am I the only one who thinks this is genuinely great news? I hope the research turns out well. I fear brain damage a good bit more than, say, losing a leg, because I'd rather be suddenly rendered immobile than suddenly rendered stupid(er). For that matter, other people don't need less-functional brains either.

It's nice to think that if the drug works as expected, It will save some number of people from such a fate. Possibly including me.

[Dave Bell]

But what are the other effects?

I;m not going to even try to guess how this stuff works, but it's not hard to imagine it could affect more than the brain, and the mechanisms which reduce the effects of concussion might make other things worse, especially in conjunction with other prescription drugs.

I've been lucky, able to talk to the doctors after my major accidents.

(Incidentally, depending on just what this does, it might be useful for spinal injuries too.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Next joke!!

Scientists studying booze consumption have found and exception to the laws of mathmatics!! It turns out if you drink 8 bottles of wine, you're likely to go to bed with a "10" and wake up in the morning with a "1"!!!

[Seventh of 7th]

Punch drunk?

May I have some funding for my own research into the effects of red wine on the brain? I can assure you that my work is peer reviewed and replicated the world over. Btw, never ask a boxer to get a round in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't hit the comatose man please!

After eight bottles of wine you'd probably be in a coma. Since I don't believe Mike Tyson would hit a comatose person, I agree that drinking that much will probably save you from being hit.

[Anonymous Coward]

<title>

Personally, I'd much rather give Iron Mike the 8 bottles to drink - then run like fuck while he's comatose!

[88mm a.k.a. Minister for Misbehaviour]

in Training

Based on the proven alcoholic's limit of 2 to 3 bottles of spirit/day, let's take a small bottle of Beefeater vs an export strength bottle of Absolute to determine the approximate "Safe" alcohol blood level for our trained athlete.

2 x 0.75l @ 37.5% = 562.5ml of pure alcohol/day*

3 x 1.00l @ 50% = 1500ml of pure alcohol/day

To err on the side of caution let's assume an alcoholic's day lasts the full 24 hours.

That gives us a conservative intake of 1litre/day or 41.666666667ml/hr

...So, 8 bottles (that's 10 and a half Imperial Pints) of Red:

8 x 0.75ml @ 12.5% (Piss weak Rioja) = 750ml of pure alcohol

8 x 0.75ml @ 14.5% (Aussie Shiraz) = 870ml of pure alcohol

So for any self respecting functioning alcoholic this presents no problem**

*For our American cousins these figures are by volume, not proof which is just double up macho bullshit. Seriously, can anyone explain the logic behind "110% proof"?

**Any self respecting alco-fiend has a repeat script*** for a generic branded proton-pump inhibiter for ulcer prevention. (Especially a financially astute wine taster who prefers a daily 6 litre carton of gut-rot-de-rhone). Re: volume i.e. 6000ml, any medical student will tell you that 10 1/2 pints is an embarrassingly low amount).

***Health Warning: Long term use of PPI may cause hair loss, B Vitamin deficiency and loss of bone density. This may be solved by wearing a corked hat and eating lots of cheese after your daily BBQ

Paris - because she can treat my ulcer any time.