As a cold front hits, many in Taiwan might turn to alcohol-based dishes such as ginger duck stew and chicken soup cooked with wine to keep warm, but doctors cautioned that the alcohol in such dishes could affect blood test results.
Taoyuan General Hospital Department of Psychiatry resident doctor Su Po-wen (蘇柏文) said he has seen cases in which people who were getting treatment after a drunk driving offense were puzzled to find that blood tests showed elevated indicators, even though they had not had a drink in weeks.
They think they have not consumed any alcohol, but were eating ginger duck stew or wine-cooked chicken soup to stay warm, he said, adding that sometimes, the indicators were even higher than before their treatment started.
Photo: Cheng Shu-ting, Taipei Times
People who drive under the influence will have their license suspended, Su said.
To regain their license, they have to retake the driver’s exam, which requires that they undergo alcohol dependency treatment at designated medical centers and be evaluated by doctors at least 12 times within a year, he said.
Carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) tests are usually used in evaluations, as they reflect longer-term regular alcohol consumption, instead of just short-term binge drinking, Su said.
The higher the index, the more serious the person’s alcohol dependency is, he said.
“Many people believe that when they stop drinking alcohol one or two weeks before they get tested, their indices would go down, but that is not correct,” Su said. “Tracking CDT is more like tracking a diabetic person’s glycated hemoglobin index, which assesses overall body conditions through a certain period, instead of measuring a short-term consumption pattern.”
“Even when a person stops drinking temporarily, it cannot mask a long-term drinking pattern nor the effect of constantly consuming meals with alcohol,” he added.
Most of the people he treats who need to retake their driver’s exam after a suspension stop drinking, as they have to pay for treatment themselves, Su said.
However, some people consume ginger duck stew or wine-cooked chicken soup on cold winter days, which raises their CDT index, he said.
Evaluations seek CDT results that are lower than 1.3 percent, but Su said they have been seeing high indices, which indicated long-term liquor consumption, but that could be due to eating food that contains alcohol.
“Consumption of such meals would affect medical treatment and evaluations, so we advise that people who eat food with liquor postpone their driver’s exam,” he said.
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