In news that surprises absolutely no one, old mate science has become the wet blanket once again, letting us know that partaking in a good ol’ shoey is actually sort of dangerous to your health.
Thanks to a study instigated by the ABC, researchers at Western Sydney University’s School of Medicine Gastroenterology Laboratory have revealed that the age-old tradition of drinking alcohol out of a shoe can result in a number of health problems, including staphylococcus aureus, which can lead to all sorts of awful things, including septicaemia (that’s blood poisoning), pneumonia, food poisoning, vomiting, nausea and diarrhoea.
WSU clinical academic gastroenterologist Dr Vincent Ho acquired a variety of different pieces of footwear, soaked them in alcohol, and tested their levels of bacteria to discover this stomach-churning news.
“One of the most remarkable things we found here was the fact that you could actually isolate an organism such as Staph even after it’s been immersed in alcohol for a good one minute,” Dr Ho explained.
“I wouldn’t recommend drinking out of a shoe that’s been immersed in alcohol.”
However, there is a bit of an upside to this bit of info, and that is that just how sick you can get depends on the type of alcohol that you fill your runners with.
Basically, the findings revealed that some certain types of alcohol actually work as something of a disinfectant, effectively neutralising the bacteria to a degree – though it doesn’t mean you should be downing a few quiet ones via a gumboot.
The findings noted that alcohol that featured a higher pH level was better at killing off the bacteria in a shoe. So while vodka and red wine fared pretty well, beer was one of the worst types of alcohol when it came to killing bacteria. Though when it came to white or sparkling wine, it turns out that’s exactly the sort of thing that staph thrives in.
“Based upon the data we’ve been able to obtain, certainly you can get some bacteria that can survive into the stomach — alive — after being immersed for one minute in sparkling wine,” Dr Ho explained. “We found a degree of Staph aureus [and] it can cause food poisoning in individuals through its toxins.”
So what does it mean for you, the ever-thirsty shoe-wearer? Well, if you’re in a position where you can use a glass, that might be your best bet. If you happen to find yourself in front of a crowd at Splendour In The Grass while thousands of punters urge you to drink a VB out of a pair of Volleys, well, just think of the words ‘blood poisoning’, and we hope you’ll make the right decision.
Check out Grouplove doing a shoey while covering Dune Rats’ ‘Bullshit’:
