Cold weather and alcohol don't mix

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 1994

The longstanding notion that alcohol protects from overexposure to cold weather is a myth. "Alcohol in the human body does not act as an anti-freeze when the mercury and wind chill drop to frigid temperatures," explains Landgrave T. Smith, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, university of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

"Although alcohol has some caloric value, it is actually a detriment to a person in cold weather. Physiologically, alcohol creates peripheral vessel dilation which results in the rapid loss of body heat." If a person becomes cold, peripheral circulation clamps down to reduce heat loss. Alcohol inhibits this protective response, increasing the risk of exposure.

Individuals who become seriously chilled should warm up gradually. Sudden exposure to heat can produce rapid dilation of the peripheral vessels, and blood pressure will fall. Alcohol may enhance a sudden vascular dilation of this type and increase the severity of the blood pressure drop.

If the blood pressure drop is sudden and severe enough, there will not be enough blood returning to the heart to give it anything to pump. If the heart is deprived, little or no blood can be forced back through the circulatory system to the heart. If no blood comes back, the heart will not have anything to pump out on the next stroke.

"If the heart pumps ~dry' like this a few times, because of a severe loss of blood pressure, the person can be in serious trouble, with symptoms that look much like heart failure. This is uncommon, but it can happen when wind chill values drop into the minus 40 [degrees[ range and a person is exposed without adequate protection. Alcohol may increase the risk for this kind of ~heart failure.'

"The psychological aspect of using alcohol in cold weather is that people have a false sense of security and fail to protect themselves from exposure to extremely cold temperatures. The stories we hear of people surviving exposure to extremely cold temperatures when they have been drinking occur not because of the alcohol intake, but in spite of it."