3-4 standard drinks, PEth test?
I was told that I wouldn't be subjected to EtG or PEth tests, but I am curious and always cautious... after multiple weeks of not drinking (I just don't drink), I had ~4 Coors Light 12oz bottles of beer on a Thursday night.
At 4.2% EtOH, I calculated this to be about 50g of alcohol, or about 3.6 standard drinks. I'm a male, approximately 160-170lbs... so somewhere around 75kg.
Would this ever show up as a positive PEth test let's say... 5-6 days later? Cutoff would probably be 20ng/ml.
The wording on a lot of the descriptions of the PEth test is fuzzy. "7 drinks in a week" or whatever... you'd have to know the rate of consumption vs the rate of elimination and with that information only, 2 drinks in one day could make it positive since there was little or no elimination time.
There's a new article that would show that even ~50g or so of ethanol will cause a positive PEth for several days.
Formation of Phosphatidylethanol and Its Subsequent Elimination During an Extensive Drinking Experiment Over 5 Days.
Gnann H, Weinmann W, Thierauf A.
PMID: 22458353