Excessive drinking, whether it’s over time or just on certain occasions, can have a serious impact on your overall health. The following are the various ways in which alcohol can impact your body:
Your Brain
Alcohol can interrupt the communication pathways of the brain, impacting how the brain functions and even look. These interruptions can alter your behavior and mood, as alcohol can make clear thinking and coordinated movement both harder to accomplish.
Your Heart
Drinking excessively over a long period of time or just too much at once can hurt your heart, resulting in complications such as:
Arrhythmia or irregular heartbeat
Cardiomyopathy or the stretching and drooping of heart tissue
High blood pressure
Stroke
Your Liver
Excessive drinking can also wreak havoc on your liver, with possible inflammations and problems such as:
Alcoholic hepatitis
Cirrhosis
Fibrosis
Steatosis or fatty liver
Your Pancreas
Alcohol is able to cause your pancreas to start producing toxic substances which eventually result in pancreatitis, which is a hazardous swelling and inflammation of pancreatic blood vessels that impede healthy digestion.
Cancer
There are clearly established patterns between the consumption of alcohol and certain kinds of cancer development:
Breast Cancer: Over 100 different epidemiologic studies analyzed the associations connecting the consumption of alcohol with breast cancer risks in women. This group of studies has repeatedly demonstrated higher risks of breast cancer in relation to higher levels of alcohol consumption. A meta-analysis was conducted of roughly half of those studies, and it highlighted the trend that women who drink 45 grams of alcohol or more each day had a 50 percent higher risk of breast cancer compared to non-drinkers. The elevated risk of breast cancer is held steadily higher for every level of alcohol consumption; a minor but noticeable increase in breast cancer risk happens for every 10 grams of daily alcohol consumed.
Colorectal Cancer: Consuming alcohol is known to be a modest increase in risk for cancers of the rectum and colon. A thorough meta-analysis of nearly 60 different studies showed that anyone drinking 50 daily grams of alcohol had a 50-percent higher chance of colorectal cancer when compared to occasional drinkers and non-drinkers. This risk increases even more for every 10 grams consumed each day.
Esophageal Cancer: The consumption of alcohol is a primary risk factor for a certain kind of cancer known as esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Also, those who have an inherited deficiency of an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol are known to have much higher risks of this kind of cancer as it relates to alcohol.
Head And Neck Cancer: The consumption of alcohol is a primary risk factor contributing to particular head and neck cancers, especially some oral cavity cancers. Individuals drinking more than 50 grams of daily alcohol have a minimum of two or three times higher risk of contracting such cancers as compared to non-drinkers. Additionally, these risks are significantly higher among those that drink this much alcohol and who are also using tobacco.
Liver Cancer: The consumption of alcohol also happens to be both a primary cause and an independent risk factor for liver cancer. Chronic infection in conjunction with either the hepatitis B or C viruses is also a primary cause of liver cancer.
Your Immune System
Excessive drinking can make your immune system weaker, which makes your body much more susceptible to disease. Chronic drinkers have higher odds of contracting diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia as compared to those that don’t drink all that much. Drinking too much in one instance lowers your body’s capability in warding off infections, and this effect lingers as much as a full day after you get drunk.
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