November 13, 2020 Brian Dooley

Alcohol and Your Health: 6 Surprising Truths

Everyone knows that alcohol can affect your body and your health. Not everyone knows that drinking excessively can impact your digestive system. With alcohol, the key is moderation.

Having a beer at a barbeque, a glass of wine at the end of a long day, or a cocktail when out with friends probably won’t cause you harm. But having more than one or two drinks a day can raise your risk for disease, including digestive diseases and cancers. The American Cancer Society recommends consuming no more than one drink per day for women and two for men.

Read on for six facts about alcohol. They may surprise you.

Six Facts about Alcohol

1. Processing alcohol keeps your body from doing other work. After you take a drink, your body begins to metabolize it, making the processing of the alcohol a priority over anything else. Your body has no way to store alcohol the way it can store nutrients like proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Because of this, alcohol needs to be metabolized first. The liver is responsible for removing alcohol from the bloodstream.
2. Excessive drinking causes bacteria to grow in your gut. This bacteria can move through the intestinal wall to the liver. This leads to liver damage.
3. Abusing alcohol can damage your heart. It can cause cardiomyopathy (weakness of the heart muscle) and arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat). Drinking too much can put people at higher risk for high blood pressure.
4. Alcohol abuse can cause pancreatitis. The pancreas is a gland in the abdomen that produces enzymes that aid in digestion and produces hormones that help regulate the sugar in the bloodstream.
5. Excessive drinking increases your risk of some cancers. These include cancers of the mouth, esophagus, throat, liver, and breast.
6. Drinking can affect your immune system. This makes the body more susceptible to infections. If you drink daily, or almost every day, you may notice that you catch colds, flu, or other illnesses more often than those who don’t drink.

How Your Body Processes Alcohol

Alcohol metabolizes in your liver. Here’s what happens when you drink.

First, your liver removes alcohol from the blood through oxidation. After oxidation, alcohol becomes water and carbon dioxide. Oxidative metabolism prevents the accumulation of alcohol in the system. If alcohol is allowed to accumulate, it can destroy cells and organs.

When you’ve drunk more alcohol than your liver can process in a timely manner, it can take a toll on your body. This starts with your liver. Oxidative metabolism contributes to the inhibition of fat oxidation in the liver that can lead to fatty liver.

Fatty liver is an early stage alcoholic liver disease. It can develop in those who drink more than two ounces of alcohol per day. Those with fatty liver may develop fibrosis and cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is permanent and may lead to liver failure even if you abstain from drinking.

If you drink heavily and notice any of these symptoms, see your doctor immediately:

• A yellow tinge to your skin
• Pain in the upper right portion of your abdomen
• Unexplained weight loss

Need to see your gastroenterologist for these or other symptoms? Make an appointment today.