Macie JepsonAnd I’m Macie Jepson, and this is The Science of Health. So many questions here and today we are leaning on Dr. Ryan Marino for the answers. He’s a medical toxicologist at University Hospitals in Cleveland. It should be https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/the-consequences-of-alcohol-symptoms-and-effects/ a surprise to no one that drinking too much alcohol can be bad for you — of course, the definition of “too much” can vary. Teens who drink are also more likely to die by falling or drowning, and are more likely to drink and drive.
- Alcohol can impact various parts of the body, including the brain, heart, liver, and pancreas, as well as essential body systems like the immune and digestive systems.
- This makes speech and coordination — think reaction time and balance — more difficult.
- Alcohol use can begin to take a toll on anyone’s physical and mental well-being over time.
- And the alcohol itself can cause brain damage, especially in like large overdoses, I guess I would say, consuming, binge drinking, that kind of thing.
- And on the flip side, we see that I mean, if people go back to drinking, you can immediately have recurrence of that.
And so even though I know someone who drank for 90 years and never developed liver failure, it doesn’t mean that I would ever want to take that risk myself. So alcohol has a number of effects and the main reason that people feel kind of relaxed and disinhibited and can even end up intoxicated is because it acts on your GABA receptors. And so if you think of GABA as being kind of the primary neurotransmitter that causes like relaxation, like benzodiazepines are a medication that would do the same kind of thing. Alcohol also acts on glutamate, which is the body’s main excitatory neurotransmitter.
What does alcohol do to your body?
Because women tend to have less water in their bodies than men, if a woman and a man of the same weight drank the same amount of alcohol, the woman’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) would likely be higher. This could help explain why women are more likely to have negative effects from alcohol. Pancreatitis can be a short-term (acute) condition that clears up in a few days.
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Cancer risk
It also harms judgment, memory, reasoning, and self control. Even though alcohol is a sedative, it disturbs sleep as its effects wear off, and is a major cause of insomnia. If you are on any medications, talk to your health care provider about how alcohol may affect them. NIAAA Director George F. Koob, Ph.D., said that as of May 2023, the institute is not aware of specific health guidelines on alcohol consumption for transgender or gender-nonconforming individuals. Long-term alcohol use can change your brain’s wiring in much more significant ways. Ways that your standard hangover cures won’t even begin to touch.
Research shows that women who drink more alcohol than is recommended on a regular basis tend to develop liver disease, cardiomyopathy and nerve damage after fewer years than men who do the same. When you stop drinking, you might notice a range of physical, emotional, or mental health symptoms that ease as soon as you have a drink. Some people who drink eventually develop a tolerance to alcohol.
What Are the Effects of Alcohol on the Body?
People consume alcohol to socialize, to relax, and to celebrate. Drinking alcohol on a regular basis can also lead to dependence, which means your body and brain have grown used to alcohol’s effects. Long-term alcohol use can affect bone density, leading to thinner bones and increasing your risk of fractures if you fall. Over time, alcohol can cause damage to your central nervous system.
This condition can be mild, moderate, or severe, depending on the number of symptoms you have. Ryan Marino, MDIn terms of kind of takeaway points, it’s never too late or too little to try to reduce the amount that you’re drinking. So I mean, if you can cut back one drink or stop for one month or completely stop, all of those things are going to have some sort of health benefit. And even if you are someone who has cirrhosis stopping drinking, it’s still not too late for that. I think in terms of the other takeaway on kind a flip side is that, I mean, I remember for the past few decades just hearing health benefits from red wine.
Around 20 percent of alcohol is absorbed through the stomach. Most of the remaining 80 percent is absorbed through the small intestine. Around 5 percent of the alcohol consumed leaves through the lungs, kidneys and the skin. Since alcohol is a depressant, https://ecosoberhouse.com/ it can slow the breathing, leading to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Intoxication impairs judgment and can result in inappropriate and illegal behaviors such as sexual promiscuity, disorderly conduct, driving while intoxicated and acts of violence.
Women have lower levels of the stomach enzyme that neutralizes alcohol before it moves into the bloodstream. Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a chronic brain disorder that makes it difficult to control alcohol use, even when it’s causing problems. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has information on how alcohol impacts your health.