Almost every student will be able to identify with an occasion where you are having a few casual bottles of Frosty Jacks and being well into your first game of ‘Ring of Fire’, when suddenly you experience an enormous urge to run to the bathroom, but are met with various horrified expressions and wails exclaiming, ‘No! You’ll break the seal!’ This turn of phrase refers to the thinking of many that if you are having a few alcoholic beverages, once you have allowed yourself to urinate, you will be forced to excuse yourself multiple times throughout the night and in order to prevent this, you should put off your first venture to the toilet, in order to not to ‘break your seal’. This concept is generally accepted to be true among the drinking community, but is there any scientific evidence for this drunken phenomenon or is it as mythical as the vast majority of posts on ‘Leeds Uni Confessions’?

Evidence has been found to suggest that alcohol has an effect on urination control through the way it affects certain hormones in the body. The pituitary gland is a protrusion off the hypothalamus at the base of the brain, and is involved in secreting hormones which control regulation in the body. This gland secretes vasopressin which is an antidiuretic hormone, required to make your kidneys reabsorb free water molecules and therefore reduce urination. If alcohol is consumed then the release of this hormone is inhibited, so your kidneys cannot reabsorb these free water molecules and instead the excess water exits the body as urine. As water-diluted urine fills your bladder more quickly, this causes you to feel the need to pee more regularly. Alcohol has also been found to be an irritant to your bladder, which may further enhance your feelings of desperation to run to the toilet. However, the reason it may feel like there is a seal you need to break could be because of the time delay which it takes for alcohol to have an effect on blocking vasopressin secretion.

Although there is certainly evidence that alcohol increases the amount and rate at which we need to urinate, it seems that the ‘seal’ may be a mythical creation, one which I’m sure drinkers will be taunted with for many years to come.

Hayley Williams