4 Effects Of Alcohol On Your Body That You Need To Know
Did you know that in the United States, excessive alcohol use results in 95,000 fatalities and 2.8 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) every four years? Furthermore, one out of every ten deaths among working-age adults aged 20 to 64 years was due to excessive drinking. Although practically everyone is aware that excessive drinking is harmful to one’s health, there are four additional ways in which alcohol affects the body that you may not be aware of:
1. Immune System Deficiency
Barely anyone associates a cold with a night of drinking, yet there could be a correlation. Alcohol results in a weaker immune system. In this sense, your body is unable to produce the necessary quantity of white blood cells to combat infections.
As a result, you’re more likely to get sick during the next 24 hours after drinking. Evidently, according to medical research, heavy drinkers who have been drinking for a long time are considerably more prone to get illnesses like pneumonia and TB.
2. Hormone Devastation
Hormones are potent molecules that control everything from your sex drive to how quickly you digest meals. As such, you need them in the perfect mix to keep everything running smoothly. However, drinking knocks them off balance.
This can throw your periods off and make it difficult to get pregnant if you’re a woman. In men, it can lead to breast growth, shrunken testicles, reduced sperm count, and erection problems.
3. Hearing Impairment
Although it’s still a gray area in medical research, alcohol affects your hearing. It may interfere with the way your brain processes sound. It could also harm the nerves and small hairs that help you hear in your inner ear.
Whatever the case may be, drinking necessitates a louder sound to be heard. And it has the potential to become permanent. Hearing loss is therefore quite common among long-term drinkers.
4. Thin Bones & Reduced Muscle
Your calcium levels might be thrown off by excessive drinking. This, together with the hormonal changes mentioned before can prevent your body from forming new bones. Your bones could become more fragile and generally thinner, a condition known as Osteoporosis.
Alcohol also reduces the blood supply to your muscles and obstructs the proteins that help them grow. As such, you’ll find that you’ve lost muscular bulk and strength as time goes on.
DWI Lawyer In Houston
Have you been charged with a DWI? Are you worried because you don’t know what’s going to happen next? Perhaps worried that your alcohol consumption is getting out of hand. We are here to help.
As you work on getting your life together, we can assist you in reducing some of your stress. Jim Butler has been a practicing lawyer for the past 24 years. He assists his clients in avoiding jail time, which may have resulted in them losing their employment and creating financial and mental hardship for themselves and their families.
Jim’s current caseload is entirely made up of DWIs (driving while intoxicated). He is currently focusing all of his efforts on these types of situations. Jim does not support drunk driving, but he does believe that many innocent individuals are “unnecessarily arrested” which is one of the reasons he became a DUI lawyer in the first place.
Call Jim Butler today at (713) 236-8744 to schedule a free consultation! Visit our blog for more related articles.