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Can human body actually make use of alcohol as energy? Because I was fairly sure we can only make energy of something that breaks down to glucose, which alcohol

Can human body actually make use of alcohol as energy? Because I was fairly sure we can only make energy of something that breaks down to glucose, which alcohol obviously doesn't. Not so sure already.

narag 10y ago
I've read somewhere that beer was used instead of water in areas where water wasn't safe. IIRC, beer has non-alcoholic calories also. I don't believe one can live on spirits, but it could make you forget you are hungry :) Edit: I should have read TFA before commenting.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Old saying that my wife's French grandpa liked to say - "I don't drink water, it makes me rust".
  - pouetpouet 10y ago
    Heard it as "Water make iron stomachs rust". Usually everyday beer as a replacement of water was smallbeer/bière de table with 2-3% alcohol.
crooked-v 10y ago
All the calories from the grains or fruits used to make alcoholic drinks don't just evaporate into the ether! "Lite" beers with low calorie contents are a fairly new invention. If you look back far enough, some early brewing, like that of ancient Egypt, made beer so thick that mugs would often come with straws built into them so people could get past the thick layer of almost-solid grains that would float to the top.
sndean 10y ago
Ethanol is broken down and eventually fed into the TCA cycle. Some useful byproducts are also made. So, yeah, you get some energy out of ethanol. It's a pretty inefficient way to get energy though.
- hinkley 10y ago
  It's an efficient way to get calories up until the year's first harvest though.
maxerickson 10y ago
Yes, humans can derive energy from alcohol. The system that eventually extracts energy from glucose (the citric acid cycle, also called the Krebs cycle) is involved, after the liver converts the ethanol.
spqr0a1 10y ago
Humans absolutely can use ethanol for energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_metabolism We net 7 kcal/g from ethanol, (compare to 9 kcal/g fat, or 4 kcal/g carbohydrate/protein.) There's several intermediate steps, but it's pretty efficient and a dense source of energy. Much of lipid and protein catabolism also does not rely on glucose as an intermediate. Everything that doesn't get converted to glucose first will get converted to acetyl-CoA (glucose catabolites turn into this too) for use in the Krebs cycle.
intrasight 10y ago
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/ability-consume-alcohol-may-have-shaped-primate-evolution http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/ability-consume-alcoh...
BjoernKW 10y ago
Absolutely. Bavarian monks famously invented Bock beer (very rich, high wort density, 7% ABV and above) as nourishment during Lent when they were not allowed to take in solid food.

narag 10y ago

I've read somewhere that beer was used instead of water in areas where water wasn't safe. IIRC, beer has non-alcoholic calories also. I don't believe one can live on spirits, but it could make you forget you are hungry :) Edit: I should have read TFA before commenting.

r00fus 10y ago
Old saying that my wife's French grandpa liked to say - "I don't drink water, it makes me rust".
- pouetpouet 10y ago
  Heard it as "Water make iron stomachs rust". Usually everyday beer as a replacement of water was smallbeer/bière de table with 2-3% alcohol.

crooked-v 10y ago

All the calories from the grains or fruits used to make alcoholic drinks don't just evaporate into the ether! "Lite" beers with low calorie contents are a fairly new invention. If you look back far enough, some early brewing, like that of ancient Egypt, made beer so thick that mugs would often come with straws built into them so people could get past the thick layer of almost-solid grains that would float to the top.

sndean 10y ago

Ethanol is broken down and eventually fed into the TCA cycle. Some useful byproducts are also made. So, yeah, you get some energy out of ethanol. It's a pretty inefficient way to get energy though.

hinkley 10y ago
It's an efficient way to get calories up until the year's first harvest though.

maxerickson 10y ago

Yes, humans can derive energy from alcohol. The system that eventually extracts energy from glucose (the citric acid cycle, also called the Krebs cycle) is involved, after the liver converts the ethanol.

spqr0a1 10y ago

Humans absolutely can use ethanol for energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_metabolism We net 7 kcal/g from ethanol, (compare to 9 kcal/g fat, or 4 kcal/g carbohydrate/protein.) There's several intermediate steps, but it's pretty efficient and a dense source of energy. Much of lipid and protein catabolism also does not rely on glucose as an intermediate. Everything that doesn't get converted to glucose first will get converted to acetyl-CoA (glucose catabolites turn into this too) for use in the Krebs cycle.

intrasight 10y ago

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/ability-consume-alcohol-may-have-shaped-primate-evolution http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/ability-consume-alcoh...

BjoernKW 10y ago

Absolutely. Bavarian monks famously invented Bock beer (very rich, high wort density, 7% ABV and above) as nourishment during Lent when they were not allowed to take in solid food.