Can Ethanol From a Denture Liner Raise a Breath Alcohol Reading?

Yes. An ethanol-containing liner material produced elevated breath alcohol readings in a ten-person experiment. The result supports investigating a documented oral alcohol source. It does not establish that all denture adhesives behave alike, prove a person’s blood alcohol was zero, or automatically invalidate a particular evidentiary breath test.

The materials were a specific type of adhesive

Yoshida and colleagues tested three liner-type denture adhesives containing polyvinyl acetate and ethanol. These cushion or relining materials should not be confused with every powder, cream or other denture adhesive.

In laboratory testing, specimens were immersed in hexane at 37°C and analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Toughgrip A released more ethanol than the two other tested products. All three released more in the first 30 minutes than during the next 30 minutes.

Hexane immersion assessed material elution under the experiment’s conditions. It was not a direct measurement of ethanol delivery into saliva, blood or a driver’s breath.

The human experiment used a palatal plate

Ten participants, aged 23–40, wore experimental upper palatal plates lined with the highest-eluting material at the manufacturer’s recommended amount. They were not regular denture wearers using their own dentures.

Breath measurements were taken with an ALBLO FC1200 detector every five minutes for an hour. The experiment tested liner exposure rather than administering an alcoholic-drink challenge. It did not include simultaneous blood alcohol collection or test every evidentiary instrument’s sampling and interference-detection system.

Results were reported in milligrams of ethanol per liter of expired air. A measured breath result from an oral source should not be converted into a claimed systemic BAC using a fixed blood–breath ratio.

The average declined before every individual fell below the comparison value

At five minutes, eight of ten participants had readings at or above the paper’s 0.15-mg/L comparison value. Readings generally declined afterward, but individual patterns varied. One participant who was below that value at five minutes exceeded it at ten minutes.

Although the group mean tended to fall below 0.15 mg/L around 20 minutes, two participants still had readings at or above it at 35 minutes. The longest period reaching that value extended through 45 minutes. All were below it at 50 minutes.

Below 0.15 mg/L did not mean zero. At 60 minutes, seven of the ten still had positive readings, ranging from 0.05 to 0.10 mg/L; three read zero. The paper’s comparison value describes its analysis and should not be treated as a universal current legal rule.

Why the study does not guarantee clearance after one hour

The authors proposed a one-hour interval, but their own limitations prevent treating it as a guarantee for every user. They tested one material in the human experiment, one upper plate and ten nondenture wearers. Actual users may apply different amounts or material to both upper and lower dentures.

There was no validation of a single waiting period across products, people and devices. The experiment also cannot show that a particular forensic instrument would accept the same sample profile or report the same value.

What should be distinguished in a DUI review

The relevant factual questions include the exact product, whether it contained ethanol, amount applied, application time, denture arrangement and the instrument’s actual sampling record. A merely possible oral source does not establish that it affected a specific result.

Conversely, positive breath alcohol does not by itself identify whether all detected ethanol came from circulating blood. The site’s mouth-alcohol detector case analysis addresses a different question about instrument safeguards, while its blood–breath comparison explains the limits of treating the two matrices as interchangeable.

Primary source

Yoshida K and colleagues. The potential effect of ethyl alcohol elution from liner type denture adhesives on breath alcohol concentration and determination of drunk driving. Journal of Dental Sciences. 2023;18:985–990. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jds.2022.12.007.