A doctor treat a patient suffering from alcohol poisoning, at Gia Định People's Hospital in HCM City. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Health experts are advising men not drink more than two units of alcohol per day while women are advised to not drink more than one.

Both men and women should not drink more than five days per week, said Trương Hồng Sơn, senior nutrition expert and director of the Việt Nam Institute of Applied Medicine.

One unit of alcohol is equivalent to about three quarters of a 330ml beer bottle, one glass of 100ml wine or a 30ml shot brandy, he said.

The advice was given in advance of Lunar New Year, when many people toast Tết by drinking alcohol. 

Sơn told Nhân dân (The People) online newspaper that people need to be aware that alcohol contains ethanol and methanol. Ethanol is also known as traditional alcohol and methanol is industrial alcohol.

The main reason for methanol poisoning is that traders have bought the chemical to mix with traditional alcohol to sell to consumers, he said.

Methanol poisoning can be dangerous to people’s health and even fatal, he said.

To limit the purchase of methanol-containing alcohols, people should not buy alcohol without labels or of unknown origins, he said.

Although methanol or ethanol poisoning have the same symptoms of hypothermia and hypotension, the process of methanol poisoning develops after half a day or even one, two days, he said.

If the patient has blurred vision, fatigue, rapid breathing, slowness, even coma, possibly vomiting, this is already the late stage of poisoning, he said.

Then the patient needs to go to the nearest medical facility immediately, he or she must not self-treat at home, he said.

After drinking alcohol, people should drink filtered water to make up for lost water and dilute the blood alcohol concentration, he said.

People should drink ginger juice, making blood vessels circulate better, thereby quickly dissolving alcohol in the body, he said.

The addition of water with diluted lemon juice, orange juice with high vitamin-C content helps reduce drunkenness and revives the body, he said.

In addition, being drunk can often leads to dehydration, so drinking lemon juice and orange juice will help quench thirst effectively.

Some foods such as bread, cereals, and porridge have a large amount of carbon that acts as a filter in the body to help absorb all alcohol and effectively prevent drunkenness, he said.

Whole grain breads and cereals contain a lot of vitamin B1, which helps limit nausea symptoms, he said. — VNS