It begins with your first sip. Not necessarily the first sip of a binge-drinking episode; no, just treating yourself to the odd glass of wine at dinner will suffice to expose your body to the impact of alcohol. You won’t necessarily feel it right away, but you know – probably even count on – the warm “good mood” buzz to kick in sooner or later. Even if you wake up with a slight hangover the following morning, you might not worry too much about that either, as it won’t last long.
While not labelling our culture’s relationship with alcohol “unhealthy” per se, its legality and broad social acceptance tempt us to ignore the risks of drinking even in moderation. The effects of drinking on our well-being might be temporary or long-term, they may be more or less noticeable and intense, but any amount of alcohol does have an impact on our body. In fact, alcohol is toxic to our bodies and the leading risk factor for death in men aged 15-59, particularly in the Eastern part of Europe.
Let’s have a look at the effects of alcohol.
Blood Alcohol Content (BAC)
The evaluation of how intoxicated you are isn’t a guessing game. Using the BAC as a metric for measuring the percentage of pure alcohol in a person’s blood is simple math. For example, if your BAC is .10, it means that 0.1 % of your blood is alcohol. With that, you would be already well above the legal limit to drive in most countries. Aside from how much you drink, additional factors affect your BAC level, such as body weight, gender, number of drinks, speed of consumption, medications consumed before/during drinking, food intake, enzyme production, etc. A breakdown of the BAC scale and the associated effects look like this:
0.020-0.039% No loss of coordination, slight euphoria, relaxation, and loss of shyness.
0.040-0.059% Feeling of well-being, reduced inhibitions, a sensation of warmth and euphoria. Minor impairment of judgment and memory.
0.100-0.129% Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of sound judgment. Speech may be slurred; apparent impairments in balance, peripheral vision, reaction time, and hearing.
0.130-0.159% Gross motor impairment and lack of physical control. Blurred vision and significant loss of balance. A state of feeling unwell sets in. (Dysphoria)
0.160-0.199% Dysphoria predominates; nausea may appear. The drinker has the appearance of a sloppy drunk.
0.200-0.249% Requires assistance in walking, total mental confusion. Dysphoria with nausea and vomiting; possible blackout.
0.250-0.399% Alcohol poisoning. Possible loss of consciousness.
0.40% + Onset of coma, possible death due to respiratory arrest.
Depending on how frequently someone drinks and as their body’s tolerance to alcohol grows, some of these effects may subjectively shift. You may know someone who can drink heavily and still claims to be able to drive. While they may have somewhat adjusted to the effects, the physical effects of alcohol on the brain are still there, with delayed reaction times and impaired motor functions. All they manage to do is cover it up better than others.
Temporary effects
While or shortly after drinking alcohol, you might experience various effects of alcohol consumption. They might not last long, develop only after a few drinks, or even appear for a few hours, but that does not make them insignificant. Over time, they can contribute to severe health disorders. Those short-term physical effects might include:
- flushed skin
- headache
- raised blood pressure
- irregular heartbeat
- loss of coordination and changes in vision and hearing
- diarrhoea
- vomiting or nausea
- loss of consciousness or blackouts
Long-term effects on the internal organs
Over time, heavy drinking takes a toll on your organs and may cause a range of – sometimes irreversible – health complications. According to the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the US National Institutes of Health, “heavy drinking” is defined as consuming more than seven drinks per week (for women) or more than 15 drinks per week (for men) respectively. The long-term effects of chronic alcohol consumption include:
Alcoholic liver disease. The liver metabolises one standard drink an hour. Excessive drinking can overwhelm this process and lead to fatty liver, a chronic condition with the build-up of bad fats. Other severe consequences involve alcoholic hepatitis, type 2 diabetes, cancer fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver failure.
Pancreatitis & pancreatic cancer. As part of the digestive process, the pancreas is involved in regulating the body’s blood sugar levels. Chronic drinking can lead the blood vessels surrounding the pancreas to swell, thus causing pancreatitis and increasing the risk of developing hazardous pancreatic cancer. As the early stages of pancreatic conditions often are unfelt or misinterpreted, people who drink heavily should be aware that the following symptoms might indicate an acute pancreatic attack: abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea, fast heart rate, and fever.
Heart damage. The heart is an organ that is highly susceptible to the harmful impact of alcohol use. On the one hand, chronic drinking can weaken the heart muscle, thus impacting the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to other organs. On the other hand, it increases triglycerides (a type of fat) in the blood, leading to coronary heart disease and diabetes.
Brain damage. Unlike other effects, the impact of alcohol on your brain is one that you can feel very quickly, even with your first drink of the evening still in front of you. The improvement of the mood, the lack of fine motor coordination, or the slightly slurred speech reflects the interference of alcohol with our normal brain function. Alcohol is a CNS (Central Nervous System) depressant that slows down brain functioning and neural activity. The brain, however, depends on a highly delicate chemical equilibrium to perform. Chronic alcohol consumption alters the natural production of chemicals and causes the brain to rely on the effect of alcohol instead. With different brain regions such as the cerebellum (responsible for our motor skills), the limbic system (handling emotions, behaviour, long-term memory, and olfaction), and the cerebral cortex (in charge of consciousness, thought, reasoning, language, and memory) affected, heavy drinking can lead to an extensive range of disorders, from minor memory lapses to debilitating diseases requiring lifelong care and treatment.
Further physical effects of alcohol may include:
- Stomach ulcers
- Immune system dysfunction
- Osteoporosis
- Mouth, throat, breast, larynx, colorectal, prostate or oesophagal cancer
- Low libido due to reduced levels of testosterone
How long does alcohol stay in the system?
Well, it depends. The amount of alcohol plays a vital role in answering this question. As we learned, a healthy liver can process approx. One drink per hour, so the alcohol of that drink will stay in the system for one hour. However, with each added drink, time also is added to that calculation. However, alcohol remains in different parts of our bodies for different amounts of time. Alcohol can be detected, for example, in urine for about 80 hours, in hair follicles for approx. Three months, and in breast milk for about 2 to 3 hours after we had that one drink.
Alcohol Intolerance
Alcohol intolerance is a genetic condition in which the body lacks the enzymes necessary to metabolise alcohol efficiently. Highly prevalent in East Asians, where 30-50% of the population are affected. Typical symptoms include flushed facial skin, stuffy or runny nose, nausea and vomiting, low blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, migraine, and other hangover-like symptoms. Without a cure for this condition, the only way to avoid these uncomfortable reactions is to avoid alcohol.
Warnings about adverse effects of alcohol
While there has been and continues to be a strong belief in significant parts of society that one glass of wine per day is healthy and good for your heart, recent research casts a different light on that myth. Yes, it may be true that alcohol, drank moderately, can have a beneficial effect on your cardiovascular system. However, if we look at the whole picture, we must weigh the benefits against the risks: seven different forms of cancer, an increased risk for dementia, and other illnesses. In 2018, a large study analysed the health burden of alcohol across 195 countries and territories and concluded that there is “no safe limit for alcohol consumption” in terms of overall health. Understanding the adverse and potentially hazardous effects of alcohol on the body, one might conclude that alcohol products should have warning labels, just as tobacco products do. A proposed resolution was discussed by the European Union, following the advice by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption to prevent cancer. However, arguing that alcohol is a part of many cultures, the delegates decided that alcohol warning labels should only caution against excessive consumption rather than warning that any drinking can increase cancer risk, as suggested by the WHO.
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