Author: Alex Thompson

Drinking too much alcohol can harm your health Learn the facts

That’s one major reason why you should never drive after drinking. Some of these effects, like a relaxed mood or lowered inhibitions, might show up quickly after just one drink. Others, like loss of consciousness or slurred speech, may develop after a few drinks. If you drink every day, or almost every day, you might notice that you catch colds, flu or other illnesses more frequently than people who don’t drink. That’s because alcohol can weaken your immune system and make your body more susceptible to infection.

Understanding how alcohol affects the mind, body, and overall health can help you make the most informed decisions about your consumption habits. If you’re concerned with your alcohol consumption and attitude toward drinking, talk to a healthcare provider as a first step. The connection between alcohol consumption and your digestive system might not seem immediately clear.

Alcohol use disorder

That’s more than two drinks a day for men and more than one drink a day for women. Your gut microbiome is a hotbed of bacteria that help keep your digestive system happy and healthy. The trillions of microbes in your colon and large and small intestines are critical to proper digestion. They also help fend off inflammation and support healthy metabolism. But there’s plenty of research to back up the notion that alcohol does lead to weight gain in general.

1. Here’s what you need to know about the damaging effects of alcohol abuse.
2. Research published in November revealed that between 2015 and 2019, excessive alcohol use resulted in roughly 140,000 deaths per year in the United States.
3. Many of the effects of heavy alcohol use are reversible, or can at least be significantly improved.
4. Alcohol also causes damage to nerves and pathways, which disrupts communication between essential organs and bodily functions.
5. Other ways to get help include talking with a mental health professional or seeking help from a support group such as Alcoholics Anonymous or a similar type of self-help group.

These symptoms typically improve quickly when alcohol use stops. Over time, alcohol can cause damage to your central nervous system. A damaged pancreas can also prevent your body from producing enough insulin to use sugar. This can lead to hyperglycemia, or too much sugar in the blood.

But as you continue to drink, you become drowsy and have less control over your actions. Alcohol use disorder can include periods of being drunk (alcohol intoxication) and symptoms of withdrawal. There’s been an uptick in non-alcoholic drink options, as more and more companies are creating alternatives. A 2020 study found that when weekly drinkers were presented with and aware of increased non-alcoholic options, they were likely to choose them. However, when researchers evaluate these potential factors, the risks outweigh any benefits.

Excessive drinking may affect your menstrual cycle and potentially increase your risk for infertility. If your body can’t manage and balance your blood sugar levels, you may experience greater complications and side effects related to diabetes. Drinking too much alcohol over time may cause inflammation of the pancreas, resulting in pancreatitis.

About 40 percent of those deaths had acute causes, like car crashes, poisonings and homicides. But the majority were caused by chronic conditions attributed to alcohol, such as liver disease, cancer and heart disease. Even drinking a little too much (binge drinking) on occasion can set off a chain reaction that affects your well-being.

What can alcohol abuse do to the brain?

For many of us, alcohol is embedded in our social and cultural activities. We go to happy hour after work, we give toasts at weddings, and we drink to celebrate and mark occasions. Oftentimes, we aren’t thinking about how much or how often we consume alcohol or its effects on the body. Slurred speech, a key sign of intoxication, happens because alcohol reduces communication between your brain and body. This makes speech and coordination — think reaction time and balance — more difficult.

We can all experience temporary and long-term effects of alcohol, depending on our consumption. This article discusses the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol and how to change your drinking habits. From the first sip, alcohol impacts the body—even if you don’t realize it. Any amount of alcohol can diminish your judgment and functioning, and even low or moderate alcohol use can have harmful effects on different organs. By not drinking too much, you can reduce the risk of these short- and long-term health risks.

Pancreatitis can activate the release of pancreatic digestive enzymes and cause abdominal pain. These effects might not last very long, but that doesn’t make them insignificant. “Excessive alcohol use” technically means anything above the U.S.

That can lead to pancreatitis, which is inflammation of the pancreas. When you drink too much alcohol, it can throw off the balance of good and bad bacteria in your gut. Your liver detoxifies and removes alcohol from your blood through a process known as oxidation. When your liver finishes that process, alcohol gets turned into water and carbon dioxide. Dr. Sengupta shares some of the not-so-obvious effects that alcohol has on your body.

Your liver produces enzymes that break down alcohol, but your liver can only handle so much alcohol at one time (approximately 1 ounce per hour). Recent research makes it clear that any amount of drinking can be detrimental. Here’s why you may want to cut down on your consumption beyond Dry January. For more information about alcohol’s effects on the body, please visit the Interactive Body feature on NIAAA’s College Drinking Prevention website. For more information about alcohol and cancer, please visit the National Cancer Institute’s webpage “Alcohol and Cancer Risk” (last accessed October 21, 2021). Drinking alcohol can influence your psychological functioning and well-being.

Even a Little Alcohol Can Harm Your Health

Lowered inhibitions can lead to poor choices with lasting repercussions — like the end of a relationship, an accident or legal woes. Each of those consequences can cause turmoil that can negatively affect your long-term emotional health. Heavy drinking can also lead to a host of health concerns, like brain damage, heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and even certain kinds of cancer.

Finding treatment for alcohol use disorder

But the health risks from drinking can come from moderate consumption as well. Though alcohol seems woven into the fabric of our social lives, drinking can have harmful health effects, even in small doses. Short-term and long-term effects of alcohol can negatively impact the mind and body, despite any potential benefits. Because alcohol is a depressant, it can also contribute to mental health conditions, like anxiety and depression. Research indicates that heavy alcohol use can also increase the risk of suicide.

Things like trouble concentration, slow reflexes and sensitivity to bright lights and loud sounds are standard signs of a hangover, and evidence of alcohol’s effects on your brain. That’s because your body already has processes in place that allow it to store excess proteins, carbohydrates and fats. So, your system prioritizes getting rid of alcohol before it can turn its attention to its other work. Cirrhosis, on the other hand, is irreversible and can lead to liver failure and liver cancer, even if you abstain from alcohol.