After the Democratic Party concluded its national convention in Denver last week, various reports suggested that this "mountain party" no longer gave the impression of being as frantic and uneasy as in previous elections. The reason was that prior to the convention, the Democratic Party had specifically warned its delegates that drinking alcohol at high altitudes would lead to more intense reactions, thus avoiding some "unpleasant incidents." So then—
In the 1930s, Columbia University psychologist McFarland began studying the effects of altitude on alcohol, noting that alcohol affects pilots. After years of research, McFarland concluded that at an altitude of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, drinking two to three cocktails produces the same physical reaction as drinking four to five drinks at sea level. This conclusion has been considered the standard for many years, but in fact, it has not been verified by much research.
The reason for questioning this statement is twofold: first, altitude does not change the body's metabolic function of alcohol. An Austrian study conducted an experiment with a group of mountaineers, comparing their various physical reactions after drinking alcohol at sea level and at an altitude of 10,000 feet. The mountaineers in the study drank one liter of beer and were then examined, and it was found that regardless of their location, their blood alcohol content was the same. Another survey also showed that alcohol's effect on the subjects' ability to solve math problems was the same at sea level and at an altitude of 12,000 feet.
On the other hand, alcohol may make it more difficult for people to acclimatize to altitude sickness, whose main symptoms—headache, dizziness, and loss of appetite—are similar to the effects of being drunk. The Austrian study also found that mountaineers who had consumed alcoholic beverages had slightly more difficulty breathing on the mountain compared to those who had not. At high altitudes, the air is thinner, so people must breathe more, and drinking alcohol could potentially increase the risk of oxygen deprivation.
However, moderate drinking does not seem to have a significant impact on altitude sickness. A study on mountaineers in the Rocky Mountains found that adult mountaineers who drank alcohol within 24 hours before arrival had a lower chance of developing acute altitude sickness. Of course, this result could be counter-argued, as these individuals might have already developed altitude sickness before they drank.