Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases and other serious problems including: High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems.
It is estimated that between 90% and 98% of all alcohol that enters the body is metabolized and absorbed. The remaining alcohol is then expelled from the body through sweat, urine, vomit, and feces.
Genetic, psychological, social and environmental factors can impact how drinking alcohol affects your body and behavior.
Genetics, body weight, gender, age, what type of beverage, food in your stomach, medications in your system, and your state of health, influence how people respond to alcohol.
Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways and can affect the way the brain looks and works. Alcohol makes it harder for the brain areas controlling balance, memory, speech, and judgment to do their jobs, resulting in a higher likelihood of injuries and other negative outcomes.
Once alcohol is in the bloodstream, it can only be eliminated by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, sweat, urine, and breath.
Excessive alcohol ingestion disturbs the metabolism of most nutrients. Although alcohol can lead to severe hypoglycemia, alcoholics are usually glucose intolerant, probably due to a inhibition of glucose-stimulated insulin secretion.
Alcohol affects the part of your brain that controls inhibition, so you may feel relaxed, less anxious, and more confident after a drink. But these effects quickly wear off. The chemical changes in your brain can soon lead to more negative feelings, such as anger, depression or anxiety, regardless of your mood.
Nearly every organ system of our body is affected by alcohol. For individuals ages 18 and older, even a serving or two of alcohol per day can increase the risk of certain cancers, and drinking heavily over the years can cause irreversible damage to virtually every organ. Alcohol can also impact brain development.
Alcohol can cause high blood pressure, which increases your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Alcohol also weakens heart muscles, which can affect the lungs, liver, brain and other body systems, and also cause heart failure.
Symptoms of alcohol overdose include mental confusion, difficulty remaining conscious, vomiting, seizures, trouble breathing, slow heart rate, clammy skin, dulled responses (such as no gag reflex, which prevents choking), and extremely low body temperature. Alcohol overdose can lead to permanent brain damage or death.
Some common signs of intoxication are: Loud speech, boasting, crude behavior, drinking alone, drinking too fast, slurred speech, ordering doubles, buying rounds and stumbling.
Throwing up or vomiting after drinking alcohol is the body's natural way of removing potentially harmful material. When the body processes alcohol, the liver converts it into a highly reactive, toxic chemical called acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde can cause tissue damage and may trigger the onset of health conditions.
Alcohols bind with other atoms to create secondary alcohols. These secondary alcohols are the three types of alcohol that humans use every day: methanol, isopropanol, and ethanol.
Heavy Alcohol Use:
NIAAA defines heavy drinking as follows: For men, consuming more than 4 drinks on any day or more than 14 drinks per week. For women, consuming more than 3 drinks on any day or more than 7 drinks per week.
Long-Term Health Risks. Over time, excessive alcohol use can lead to the development of chronic diseases and other serious problems including: High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems. Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, and rectum.
Contrary to popular belief, nothing can lower BAC except time; coffee, cold showers, and chugging glasses of water will not help you sober up any faster. Curious what your BAC might be?
Most of the ethanol in the body is broken down in the liver by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which transforms ethanol into a toxic compound called acetaldehyde (CH3CHO), a known carcinogen.