Whether you’re a light, moderate, or heavy drinker, alcohol can reduce bone mass. Alcohol use can damage the hippocampus, the part of your brain responsible for memory and learning. Some studies have found that even light or moderate drinking can lead to some deterioration of the hippocampus. Binge drinking is behavior that raises blood alcohol levels to 0.08%. That usually means four or more drinks within two hours for women and five or more drinks within two hours for men. A 2024 report from the American Association for Cancer Research concluded that more than 5% of all cancers in the U.S. are attributable to alcohol use.
- If you’re concerned with your alcohol consumption and attitude toward drinking, talk to a healthcare provider as a first step.
- “Excessive alcohol consumption can cause nerve damage and irreversible forms of dementia,” Dr. Sengupta warns.
- This article discusses the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol and how to change your drinking habits.
- Links between alcohol and mental health have also become clearer in recent years.
- If you already drink at low levels and continue to drink, risks for these issues appear to be low.
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While you may experience euphoria or relaxation at first, in the long run, alcohol affects neurotransmitters, which can lead to changes in your thoughts, moods, and behavior. Your immune system works to keep you as healthy as possible by fighting off foreign invaders, such as viruses, bacteria, and toxins. To your body, alcohol is a toxin that interrupts your immune system’s ability to do its job, thereby compromising its function.
The findings were widely publicized and promoted by the alcohol industry, and they gained traction in the medical community. You can take steps to lower your risk of alcohol-related harms. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Digestive System
- Having a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a party here and there isn’t going to destroy your gut.
- You might not link a cold to a night of drinking, but there might be a connection.
- Alcohol also limits blood flow to your muscles and gets in the way of the proteins that build them up.
Along with the hormone changes that alcohol triggers, that can keep your body from building new bone. Your bones get thinner and more fragile, a condition called osteoporosis. Alcohol also limits blood flow to your muscles and gets in the way of the proteins that build them up.
The Steps to Liver Disease
Steatotic liver disease develops in about 90% of people who drink more than 1.5 to 2 ounces of alcohol per day. Heavy drinking can also lead to a host of health concerns, like brain damage, heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and even certain kinds of cancer. Dietary Guidelines for Americans continued to recommend that men consume no more than two drinks per day and women no more than one. However, those guidelines also emphasize that people who don’t currently drink shouldn’t start. Decades ago, large surveys of adults began showing an association between how much alcohol someone drank and their risk of death.
How Alcohol Affects Your Body
Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. Ultimately, clinicians like Stafford and Humphreys said they hope people who decide to drink alcohol do it consciously, armed with knowledge about its risks. Recent research has also shown that adults over the age of 50 or 60 show signs of impairment at lower blood alcohol concentrations than younger people. They are also more likely to already be living with chronic diseases, and to be taking prescription medications that might interact poorly with alcohol. Because women metabolize alcohol differently than men, and tend to have smaller bodies, the same amount of alcohol can have a stronger effect for them. Chen’s research has shown how alcohol affects people of East Asian descent who have a genetic variation, ALDH2, which interferes with their ability to metabolize acetaldehyde.
With continued alcohol use, steatotic liver disease can lead to liver fibrosis. Eventually, you can develop permanent and irreversible scarring in your liver, which is called cirrhosis. “Some people think of the effects of alcohol as only something to be worried about if you’re living with alcohol use disorder, which was formerly called alcoholism,” Dr. Sengupta says. She says people may feel shame about their alcohol use, and may not feel comfortable honestly sharing with their health care providers about how much they drink. “Doctors really need to get more comfortable talking to patients about this in a nonjudgmental way,” she says. When it comes to alcohol, if you don’t drink, don’t start for health reasons.
Research has demonstrated that long-term heavy drinking weakens the heart muscle, causing cardiomyopathy. Alcohol misuse can also lead to high blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia), or increased heart rate. Chronic, heavy drinking raises the risk for ischemic heart disease (heart problems caused by narrowed arteries) and myocardial infarction (heart attack). Alcohol can impact various parts of the body, including the brain, heart, liver, and pancreas, as well as essential body systems like the immune and digestive systems. Alcohol use can increase the risk of cardiovascular problems, cognitive decline, liver disease, mental health conditions, and more.
Your Brain Shrinks
Over time, you’ll have lower muscle mass and less strength. You might not link a cold to a night of drinking, but there might be a connection. Alcohol puts the brakes on your body’s defenses, or immune system.
For example, any amount of drinking increases the risk of breast cancer and colorectal cancer. As consumption goes up, the risk goes up for these cancers. In the United States, moderate drinking for healthy adults is different for men and women. It means on days when a person does drink, women do not have more than one drink and men do not have more than two drinks. The initial contact points — mouth, throat, esophagus and stomach — are most vulnerable, which is why these areas show some of the strongest links to alcohol-related cancers. Stanford experts discuss the health implications of moderate alcohol consumption and how the guidelines have changed.
Damaged DNA can cause a cell to grow out of control, which results in cancerous tumors. But there’s plenty of research to back up the notion that alcohol does lead to weight gain in general. You probably already know that excessive drinking can affect you in more ways than one. In the United States, people younger than age 21 are not legally able to drink alcohol. “A lot of people with this genetic variant are aware of some of the visible symptoms, but they don’t know that it means alcohol really puts them at more risk than other people,” Chen said.
Heavy drinking, including binge drinking, is a high-risk activity. Many people drink alcohol as a personal preference, during social activities, or as a part of cultural and religious practices. People who choose not to drink make that choice for the same reasons. Knowing What Alcohol Does your personal risk based on your habits can help you make the best decision for you. Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems.
Research also shows that heavy drinking by men may lower testosterone levels and affect the making of sperm. Over time, heavy drinking makes the organ fatty and lets thicker, fibrous tissue build up. That limits blood flow, so liver cells don’t get what they need to survive. As they die off, the liver gets scars and stops working as well, a disease called cirrhosis.
And that’ll have big effects on your ability to think, learn, and remember things. It can also make it harder to keep a steady body temperature and control your movements. Heavy drinking means eight or more drinks a week for women and 15 or more for men. In addition to its effects on the brain, alcohol also affects the peripheral nervous system, which comprises the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord.