Comparison of Breath and Blood Alcohol Elimination Rates of Non‐Alcohol Dependent People After a Heavy Drinking Session

BACKGROUND: Data on elimination of blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) are important for many purposes, such as in cases of driving under the influence (DUI). Current knowledge on BrAC elimination is based on studies with low-alcohol concentrations, whereas in DUI cases alcohol concentrations are usually high. We studied BAC and BrAC elimination in real-world drinking sessions with high alcohol concentrations. METHODS: A total of 122 healthy volunteers consumed ethanol in seven study sessions of 11-13 h from October 2025 to February 2026, of which 43 females and 48 males gave samples during the confirmed ethanol elimination period. BAC was measured from whole-blood samples. BrAC was analyzed with an evidential breath analyzer. We used linear regression models to assess background characteristics associated with BAC and BrAC elimination rates. We used bootstrapping to estimate the quantiles of the empirical elimination-rate distributions and fitted quantile regression models to examine the robustness of the sample quantiles. RESULTS: Mean and median BAC elimination rates for females were 0.200 and 0.201 g/kg/h, and for males 0.169 and 0.159 g/kg/h. Mean and median BrAC elimination rates for females were 0.096 and 0.095 mg/L/h, and for males 0.079 and 0.083 mg/L/h. Mean maximum BAC for females was 1.54 and for males 1.71 g/kg, and mean maximum BrAC was 0.73 and 0.78 mg/L, respectively. The 2.5% and 97.5% quantiles of BAC elimination rates for females were 0.116 and 0.292 g/kg/h, and of BrAC 0.034 and 0.139 mg/L/h, respectively. For males, these figures were 0.092 and 0.256 g/kg/h, and 0.028 and 0.137 mg/L/h. CONCLUSIONS: Estimated BAC and BrAC elimination rates were at or slightly above the upper range of previously reported values. For forensic applications, we suggest BrAC elimination rates of approximately 0.03 and 0.14 mg/L/h, corresponding to BAC elimination of 0.10 and 0.25 g/kg/h.