How Does Alcohol Affect Body – Alcohol plays a big part in our culture. We consume it in festivals, social occasions and even in some religious festivals. However, excessive alcohol consumption can be harmful to the body.
According to https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/, in 2013 24.6% of people age 18 and older reported engaging in alcohol use in the past month. 6.8% of respondents reported heavy drinking.
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How Does Alcohol Affect Body
While most of us understand the dangers of drinking and driving or becoming dependent on alcohol, many people don’t see the effects of alcohol on our organs and other vital functions.
How Alcohol Affects Your Body?
While you are receiving treatment for alcohol addiction, the disease itself has long-term and sometimes permanent effects on your body. The liver, a regenerative organ, is easily damaged by alcohol consumption. In fact, alcohol-related liver disease is the cause of 1 in every 3 liver transplants in the United States.
Let’s take a look at the ways in which regular alcohol consumption can harm your body and its vital functions.
Anyone who has felt even the slightest effect of alcohol knows that alcohol quickly affects the brain. For many users, some drinks can prevent you from having a normal conversation and slurring your words. If it seems that once you are sober, you will recover yourself. However, even a small amount of alcohol can affect the brain.
Research conducted using brain imaging and psychological tests has identified areas of the brain that are most affected by alcoholism.
What Organs Does Alcohol Affect?
The cerebellum is the part of the brain that controls movement. Damage to this area causes incoordination (such as stumbling), and can affect memory and emotional responses. The limbic system also controls memory and emotions, and is affected by alcoholism. The brain controls our ability to think, plan and interact socially, as well as our nervous system. Damage to this area impairs our ability to solve problems, learn and remember.
We’ve already discussed how alcohol affects neurotransmitters, even after a night of heavy drinking. When neurotransmitters decrease, you start to feel sleepy. It can also cause changes in mood and behavior, including memory loss, anxiety and depression.
Long-term drinking can cause changes in the contents of neurons, even causing a decrease in the size of brain cells. This causes a decline in the brain, causing problems with motor coordination, temperature regulation, sleep, mood, learning and memory.
Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that is rapidly absorbed even with light intake. It is believed that interference with this device is the reason for the temporary “blackouts” that some people experience after a night of drinking.
How Alcohol Affects Your Well Being
Liver damage can also affect the brain. Damaged liver cells do not work properly, and produce toxic substances – such as ammonia and manganese – that go to the brain. This leads to a possible brain disease known as hepatic encephalopathy. This disorder causes many problems including insomnia, personality changes, depression, anxiety, lack of attention, coordination problems, and even fainting or death.
We don’t always know the effect of alcohol consumption on heart function. Since the heart does not directly regulate the alcohol we drink, many people are unaware of the effects of alcohol on the proper functioning of the heart. Let’s explore the different ways that alcohol can affect our heart health.
Alcohol can weaken the heart muscle, a condition called alcoholic cardiomyopathy. A weak muscle cannot contract and begins to weaken. As a result, not enough blood is pumped to the vital organs. In some cases, this lack of blood flow can cause severe damage to organs and tissues. Symptoms of alcoholic heart disease include shortness of breath, fatigue, bloating and irregular heartbeat.
Long-term alcohol consumption can affect the heart rate. The heart uses an internal pacemaker to pump blood regularly. Alcohol disrupts this system, which causes the heart to beat too fast or irregularly.
Alcohol And Hair Loss: The Effects Of Heavy Drinking
Atrial fibrillation causes the chambers of the heart to contract abnormally, causing blood to pool or become blocked in the upper chambers of the heart. Blood clots traveling from here to the brain can cause a stroke or a blocked artery.
Ventricular tachycardia occurs in the lower chambers of the heart. Alcohol damage causes the muscles to contract too much, causing the heart to beat faster and not fill with blood between each beat. This can cause dizziness, unconsciousness, cardiac arrest or even death.
If blood does not reach the brain, it causes a stroke. About 80 percent of the time, it’s caused by a blood clot—called an ischemic stroke. Sometimes, blood builds up in the heart causing a stroke.
Heavy drinkers are 56% more likely to have a stroke, and 39% more likely to have any type of stroke, compared to non-drinkers.
How Long Does Alcohol Stay In Your System?
Alcohol also causes high blood pressure, commonly known as hypertension. Excessive alcohol consumption causes the release of stress hormones, causing blood vessels to constrict. This increases blood pressure and causes hypertension.
More than 2 million Americans suffer from alcohol-related liver disease. The liver works hard to keep the body healthy by removing toxins such as alcohol. Since the liver is responsible for breaking down most of the alcohol consumed, it is more susceptible to damage due to alcohol consumption.
Drinking too much alcohol can cause fat to accumulate on the surface of the liver. This is called fatty liver, or steatosis, and is considered the first stage of alcoholic liver disease. Too much fat can make the liver work harder.
A fatty liver that is not working properly often causes inflammation, such as alcoholic liver disease. Symptoms of this disease include fever, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, nausea, and even confusion. As this condition worsens, it causes the liver to enlarge and cause jaundice, heavy bleeding and clotting problems.
Effects Of Alcohol Hi Res Stock Photography And Images
Fibrosis of the liver causes the accumulation of scar tissue around the liver. Alcohol affects the chemicals that the liver uses to break down this scar, and as a result, the liver cannot remove it and heal.
Accumulation of scar tissue eventually leads to cirrhosis, which is the gradual deterioration of liver function. Cirrhosis prevents the liver from performing important functions, such as treating disease and removing toxins from the blood. This can lead to jaundice, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and liver cancer.
Excessive alcohol consumption can cause damage to the pancreas, causing pancreatitis. Alcohol destroys pancreatic cells and affects metabolic pathways that regulate insulin.
Alcohol affects how the pancreas metabolizes food. When too much alcohol is consumed over time, the digestive system begins to secrete digestive juices inside instead of sending enzymes to the small intestine. These enzymes are very harmful to the pancreas. Over time, this can lead to pancreatitis – inflammation of the pancreas.
How Alcohol Affects The Body
Pancreatitis eventually causes the pancreas to stop working. Acute pancreatitis usually appears suddenly. Over time, this inflammation becomes permanent, causing chronic pancreatitis. Chronic pancreatitis can lead to pancreatic cancer.
Chronic pancreatitis causes all these symptoms, as well as a significant reduction in pancreatic function. This can slowly damage the liver and lead to diabetes or death.
Drinking too much alcohol can increase the risk of certain types of cancer. Studies have shown that drinking more alcohol increases the risk of developing these cancers. Liver cancer, mentioned above, is one of the many cancers that develop as a result of breastfeeding.
Drinking five or more drinks a day increases the risk of colon cancer. A report by the International Cancer Research Fund shows that women who drink more than five alcoholic drinks a day have a higher risk of colon or rectal cancer than women who do not drink.
Neurologic Diseases Associated With Alcohol Consumption
Linking alcohol consumption to cancer is difficult because alcohol is usually not a major cause of cancer. Alcohol metabolism leads to the removal of harmful toxins from the body. One of these, known as acetylaldehyde, destroys the biological properties of cells and prevents them from repairing themselves. This can cause cells to grow too fast, causing genetic changes that can lead to cancer.
As cells break down alcohol in the body, it causes the body to produce large amounts of a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). This protein promotes the growth of blood vessels and tissue, but it can also cause blood vessels in cancer cells to become tumors.
The job of our immune system is to protect our body from foreign substances that can make us sick. Drinking too much alcohol weakens the immune system, which increases the risk of infection.
Our body has two types of immune response. The natural system is formed in our body before we are exposed to foreign substances such as viruses and bacteria, while the adaptive system begins to kick in after the first exposure.
What Are Short And Long Term Effects Of Alcohol On The Brain?
Alcohol inhibits the natural and balanced immune system. This reduces the ability of the white blood cells to effectively fight harmful bacteria again. alcohol
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