A university cautions that a current college drinking TikTok trend may be to fault for putting students in danger. The University of Massachusetts Amherst said in a statement that the fire department handled 28 ambulances related to "a large number of alcohol intoxication incidents."
A protester holds two gallons of milk that could be used for relief from tear gas in case of riots in Downtown Columbus, Ohio, June 1, 2020
BORG Explained: The Latest Party Craze on College Campuses
The statement also said that some students were seen carrying what might be "BORGs" or plastic gallon jugs with diluted alcoholic drinks. These BORGs are also known as "blackout rage gallons" that contain a mix of alcohol, water, and electrolytes.
The TikTok trend #BORG has accumulated over 82 million views, depicting college students dumping out about half of the gallon's water and filling it up with alcohol, like vodka, juice, or electrolytes.
A TikToker explains that it is essentially a hack to drink lots of alcohol, have a crazy night, and not feel terrible the next day, adding that it is how Generation Zs like their drinks.
Nicole Barr from the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Abrons Student Health Center told CBS News it could contain a fifth of alcohol, equivalent to roughly 16 drinks. It seems partygoers have swapped the red Solo cup for the gallon because they could make their drink independently, reducing the dangers of relying on others to craft the beverage.
But Barr emphasized that the amount of alcohol is still a lot for any person to ingest, especially in one sitting. A standard serving of 40% or 80proof vodka is about 1.5 ounces, but Dr. George Koob of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health said that some BORG recipes call for half a gallon or 43 servings of alcohol.
He said that consuming that much alcohol would be fatal for most people, even if it is spread out over one day. No data shows how many students follow the borg recipes of half a gallon of vodka, but experts warn of its deadly consequences.
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What Can BORG Do to the Body?
BORG is essentially just binge drinking that looks safer. But no matter how much extra water and electrolyte solution, it does not serve as a vaccine against binge drinking. For instance, CBS News reported in a separate article that the 46 University of Massachusetts Amherst students who ended up being hospitalized had a BORG drinking challenge during their off-campus party.
As UMass' official statement, about 28 ambulances rushed the students to the hospital after the life-threatening event, warning others that not everything's cool is safe.
According to Forbes, the stomach can only absorb 20% of the alcohol, while 80% will be absorbed by the small intestine and into the bloodstream. But eventually, it is the liver that gets the most of the alcohol out of the body as it is what metabolizes the alcohol using enzymes.
|But drinking more than one drink per hour overwhelms the liver, so the alcohol remains in the bloodstream and the body. That is when this kind of TikTok challenge cause harm to the body.
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