Low carb diets can inject extra alcohol into DUI breath samples… leading to wrongful DUI arrests and charges.
The relationship between California DUI defense and low carbohydrate / high protein diets surprises many people… but it exists. Here’s why.
1. DUI Breath Testing
The majority of California DUI arrests and DUI prosecutions depend on evidence of a person’s blood alcohol content (BAC). To produce this evidence, law enforcement agencies rely on DUI breath tests. These use machines that convert a measurement of breath alcohol content into a BAC based on a variety of electromagnetic technologies.
2. Low Carbohydrate Diets and Ketosis
A diet sufficiently low in carbohydrate foods causes a person’s digestive system to enter a process called “ketosis.” Ketosis produces a natural form of alcohol in a person’s stomach that is ultimately quite different from the kind of alcohol people drink.
3. Ketosis Can “Trick” Breath Testing Devices
Not all breath testing devices used by law enforcement can distinguish between alcohol someone drinks and alcohol produced as the result of ketosis.
If you are on a low carb diet, natural alcohol traces from ketosis could come out in your DUI breath sample. This, in turn, could lead to a falsely high BAC reading and put you over California’s legal limit of .08% BAC.
Our Los Angeles DUI lawyers know that there are innumerable reasons why people are wrongfully arrested and charged with DUI every day. Ketosis from low-carb diets is just one possible cause.
We make sure to perform a full client interview to uncover every possible defense in a DUI case. As a result, we have successfully defended thousands of clients throughout Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Orange counties. Contact us today for a free consultation to find out how we can help you.