NBC NEWS – If you enjoy having a glass of wine or a cocktail before dozing off during long airplane flights, you might want to reconsider it, a new study suggests.
A series of lab experiments discovered that when people fall asleep after consuming alcohol at the low air pressures typically experienced during airline flights, blood oxygen drops to worrisome levels and heart rates increase even in those who are healthy and young, according to the report published Monday in the journal Thorax.
The new research should give airline passengers who like to drink while flying pause, said study co-author Dr. Eva-Maria Elmenhorst, deputy of the department of sleep and human factors research at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine at the German Aerospace Center in Cologne, Germany.
Even when we don’t drink, commercial flying can be taxing for the body. Dry cabin air can cause dehydration and being immobile in cramped seats for hours can sometimes trigger blood clots in the legs.
At cruising altitude, cabin pressure is set to what would be experienced between 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level, which can contribute to lower oxygen saturation in the blood.
As air pressure decreases the amount of oxygen a person takes in with each breath also declines, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The German scientists expected that alcohol consumption at low air pressure would have an effect on people, but “we were surprised to see that the effect was so strong,” Elmenhorst said, urging flyers: “Please don’t drink alcohol while being on an airplane.”
“The oxygen saturation dropped to quite low levels during sleep,” she said. “This is why I would recommend to avoid drinking alcohol even when someone is healthy” …
