If someone asks you how alcohol affects your health, you would be able to list the most common ones, but if asked to name all of the ways, some of the answers may surprise you.
People drink when they want to socialize, relax, boost their confidence, or when they feel happy. Alcohol has an obvious pleasurable effect on people and it’s easy to forget about its side effects. You can experience side effects even if you are drinking a beer. The more you drink, the more intense and long lasting side effects will be.
Drinking can damage your body in time, more than you can see it. But this doesn’t mean that drinking in small amounts has the same effects on your body.
The latest U.S. dietary guidelines recommend people to have two drinks daily because studies prove that it can lower the risk of diabetes and maintain the mind sharp. While drinking one glass of wine daily is good for your health, alcohol abuse can be harmful.
Alcohol Affects Your Brain’s Functions
You will find puzzling the effects alcohol has on the human brain. Let’ start with the moments you don’t remember, they are temporary amnesia episodes. If you don’t temper your drinking habits, you can develop the Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, a health condition with symptoms like seizures, speaking and vision difficulties, and memory-impairment. The worst part about this disease is that it can stop you from forming new memories and you may experience moments when you will mumble helplessly.
Alcohol can cause your brain to release excess dopamine and GABA, two neurotransmitters that provoke pleasure. However, when released in excess they can cause hallucinations, mental problems, high blood pressure, shortness of breath and other similar symptoms.
Alcohol abuse leads to an excessive release of endorphins, the neurotransmitters that contain pain-reducing chemicals. Your body naturally releases them when you exercise, engage in sexual activity, or you are performing another rewarding action. But when your brain releases too much endorphin you can experience mental health issues, infertility, or low sex drive.
Booze Can Damage Your Liver
This may not be a surprise, but what you may be shocked to find out is that every extra glass of booze gives a hit to your liver. If you drink more than a glass of alcohol per hour the substance is metabolized in your liver, and the effects are not healthy at all. Your liver transforms alcohol into a toxic substance called acetaldehyde that can easily lead to cancer.
You may think that cancer is a condition that takes time to grow and you have plenty of time to tone down your drinking habits but the other effects alcohol has on your liver can show how fast alcohol can become very detrimental to your health.
Alcohol abuse can result in fat in your liver, this means that it will no longer function properly because it’s clogged with fat. The fatty liver disease is one of the main causes of alcoholic hepatitis because it can generate liver inflammation.
Once you get alcoholic hepatitis, you are at risk to suffer from cirrhosis. At this point, the cells in your internal organ cannot regenerate and you are at high risk to experience liver failure. Cirrhosis is also a common trigger of cancer. This shows suffering from a life-threatening condition can happen sooner than you think.
Alcohol Abuse Can Cause Breast Cancer
When it comes to how much you can consume, for women it’s advisable to stick to a drink a day, or even once in a blue moon. Alcohol consumption is one of the triggers of breast cancer because it raises the estrogen levels in your body.
Multiple studies have concluded that brews can increase the levels of estrogen that can cause breast cancer. For a woman to increase her risk it takes only 3 drinks weekly. And the surprise may come from the fact that younger women who drink have greater chances to suffer from this condition. We are all accustomed women in their 40s to experience cancer, but when it comes to alcohol abuse, younger ladies are at a higher risk.
Your Stomach And Pancreas Are Also Affected
Alcohol is bad for your stomach. When you ingest it, your stomach produces great quantities of acid that can lead to gastritis. Also when drinking, your stomach can get inflamed because of the irritations beverages create in the lining. An inflamed stomach is at risk of ulcers and even bleedings. If you regularly abuse alcohol, you can tear the stomach lining and experience anaemia.
Rehab centers mention many of the patients that check-into their facilities are suffering from a mild or serious form of anaemia. It’s advisable to consult a specialist from a drug and alcohol rehab Birmingham if you need support to stop your drinking habits. Do not wait to experience stomach pain after drinking because it can be a sign of a more complex health problem and it can deeply affect your wellbeing.
Pancreatitis is another problem regular alcohol consumption can lead to. When your pancreas is inflamed, you are at risk of developing pancreatic cancer or diabetes.
Beverages Are High In Calories
If you are wondering why you cannot lose weight you should keep a track of how much you are drinking. Before sipping wine, you should count the calories you have left for that day because even if it’s not food, alcohol can trigger weight gain. If you are sedentary, do not have more than 1,800 calories daily for your eating-plan. When counting the calories of the meals and snacks, you will notice you have less than 180 discretionary calories daily. So you have to make a choice between having a glass of wine or a muffin. There’s no room for both. If you want to enjoy both booze and sweets, you should start working out to cut down some of the calories you ingest daily.
Show Comments
Comments are closed.