Singer Amy Winehouse died on July 23, 2011 at her home in London’s Camden borough, she was only 27 years old. Doctors determined that the cause of death was an alcohol overdose. At the same time, the singer’s relatives had their own versions of what happened: bulimia, which the girl could not defeat for several years; drugs (even if the singer was in remission of her addiction); a combination of alcohol and drugs. Woman’s Day figured out how to drink so as not to repeat the sad fate of the star.
Amy Winehouse: cause of death is alcohol
The main version of the cause of death of Amy Winehouse (Amy Winehouse) was an overdose of alcohol. After an autopsy, 418 mg was found in her blood for every 100 ml of blood, with an allowable rate of 80 mg – this concentration can lead to depression of the respiratory center. The coroner noted that 350 mg per 100 ml of blood is considered a lethal dose of alcohol, it is easy to see that Winehouse significantly exceeded this figure. “Alcohol predominantly affects the cells of the cerebral cortex, but its effect can spread to the spinal cord,” says Anna Boyko, narcologist at the Narkomed clinic. – Spinal reflexes are affected. Under alcoholic anesthesia, and this is what happened with Amy Winehouse, paralysis of the respiratory center occurs before the nerve trunks (through which signals from the brain pass, for example, to a limb), thus, a person dies of suffocation, being for the most part in a dream”.
Severe alcohol poisoning occurs when the blood alcohol content exceeds 3 ppm. The amount of alcohol that can lead a person to such a sad state is calculated individually, depending on the health and body weight of the drinker. One way or another, it must be significant – next to the bed of the fragile Amy Winehouse, they found two liter and one half liter bottles of vodka. True, it is still unknown how long it took for her to drink such an amount of “little white”. In order to avoid trouble, give up the idea of drinking “at speed” – the risk of alcohol poisoning with fast drinking increases exponentially. It is also important to know the symptoms of a critical condition triggered by an alcohol overdose. These include uneven, slow breathing, seizures, a drop in body temperature, pale, blue skin. A person who is in a state of severe alcohol poisoning must be kept awake until the arrival of an ambulance – if the person who has gone too far falls asleep, he may not wake up, as happened with Amy Winehouse.
Amy Winehouse with her friend Kelly Osbourne
Another version of Winehouse’s sudden death is taking narcotic painkillers in combination with a large dose of alcohol. It was this cause of death that the father of the deceased singer voiced to the fans. Some powerful pain relievers are known to contain morphine-like substances, which, when combined with ethanol, also cause respiratory depression, from which Amy died. However, they are removed from the blood within four hours after ingestion, and since Amy Winehouse’s body was found only in the early morning, no one can even imagine what else besides vodka the star took. After all, not only one alcohol on an empty stomach (and even with bulimia, which the girl suffered for many years!) Could cause respiratory arrest, death could also occur as a result of taking codeine-containing painkillers …
To avoid poisoning, avoid combining pain relievers with alcohol, regardless of whether they are strong analgesics or not. Precaution in such matters will not be superfluous, especially since no one is immune from an unexpected meeting with codeine – until recently, the drug was part of the popular painkillers Pentalgin-N, Nurofen Plus and Kaffetin. So, removing a headache with a couple of pills from the office first-aid kit right before Friday’s party, you risk spending the next morning not looking at photos on social networks, but in the hospital under a dropper.
Even a small dose of alcohol can be fatal
Pills other than narcotic pain relievers should also not be taken with alcohol. And it’s not even about antibiotics, an example of the incompatibility of which with drinking has already become a textbook. Few people know, but paracetamol, a popular component of antipyretics and light painkillers (Teraflu, Coldrex, Solpadein), is not combined with alcohol either. Drinking and paracetamol pills together inflict a crushing blow on the liver even when the daily dose of drugs is not exceeded. And literally one or two paracetamol-containing tablets in excess of the recommended dose may be enough for the development of serious liver damage with necrosis.
Another seemingly harmless pain reliever is analgin. It has lived in first-aid kits for many years and is regularly used against headache or toothache, but in combination with alcohol it seriously harms health: analgin plus alcohol leads to erosive and ulcerative damage to the gastrointestinal tract, moreover, it can contribute to internal bleeding. And this, in turn, will provoke the development of severe iron deficiency anemia, which is almost impossible to cure.
Another “bad” mixture is sleeping pills, tranquilizers and alcohol. The combination of barbiturates (“Luminal”, “Valocordin”, “Corvalol”, “Barbamil”) and benzodiazepines (“Relanium”, “Tranxen”) can lead to sudden death or a malfunction of the nervous system (for example, one of the sensory organs can turn off, and forever and ever). And, of course, antidepressants! As you know, they lower the activity of the nervous system, and alcohol performs the exact opposite function. What happens if you mix them? The heart will begin to work at an accelerated rhythm. Blood pressure will rise sharply, further death is possible.