I work at a restaurant, and the other day in my training I was reading that an individual that consumes a carbonated alcoholic beverage will absorb the alcohol much faster than if it were a beverage with no carbonation.
Now, my question is this. If the carbonation helps with the absorption of alcohol, wouldn’t it have the same affect with protein and/or other substances that can be absorbed though the carbonated liquid? I was thinking that this might be “ideal” for and individual that is trying to get nutrients absorbed into their bodies quickly. Let me know your thoughts on this…
Carbonation (and sugar) helps the alcohol pass through the blood-brain barrier at a faster rate than without it, therefore getting you snockered quicker. I doubt the same effect would bring protein into the muscles, as the structure is different, but hey, I could be wrong (but doubt it)…
Last I read, a lot of carbonation wasn’t so good for digestion of protein.
Something about reduced enzyme activity. Faster does not always mean better…things do need to be digested thoroughly before they get to the small intestine.
ok so just a quick note. Carbonation helps the absorbtion of titratable organic molecules, basically that is a huge category but basically does not apply to protein for various reasons.
That is the basic version here is the slightly more complicated.
Carbonation buffers your system against stomachs Hydrochloric acid. HCl, normally renders a neutral molecule, ethanol(drinking alcohol), protonated, or positively charged.
This makes it less apt to cross the stomach epithelium and enter the bloodstream, this is entirely analogous to the bbb argument posed above. So Carbonation(bicarbonate) basically takes the blow or takes the brunt of some of the acid to allow more neutral alcohol to pass freely through the stomach into the blood.
Some would argue that carbonation makes a drink more acidic (carbonic acid), but buffering still occurs with bicarbonate and carbonic acid is many orders of magnitude weaker than HCl, so it still diminishes protonation.
Why this does not work for proteins:
proteins and amino acids are not absorbed in the stomach, they are broken down in the stomach. The buffering posed by bicarbonate actually inhibits the denaturation of the protein and activity of pepsin.
Therefore bicarbonate would slow down the rate of breakdown of protein in the stomach. The effects however, are arguably not as immediate or noticable as they are in the alcohol experiment, because of the time scale of the digestion of these peptides, meaning they take much longer than bicarbonate actually buffers. In any case, it has an effect.
Amino acids and proteins are absorbed by active transport in the small intestine, most often coupled to Na transport(meaning it is active). Amino acids and proteins in the small intestines can also be absorbed in other wierd ways but these ways mainly serve as a means for immunotesting(is that even a word?).
[quote]gi2eg wrote:
I don’t think so as it’d still be in the stomach at the same time.
While I understand your curiosity and questions like this are generally good, do you feel you are not digesting your protein shake quickly enough?[/quote]
