How does Alcohol Affect your Physical Health

Many people enjoy an alcoholic beverage or two on occasion with friends or family, but alcohol can be addictive. Excessive consumption of alcohol may have potentially serious health consequences.  While moderate alcohol consumption can provide some health benefits, heavy drinking may lead to premature aging internally and externally. If you’ve ever wondered how drinking ages you, it can have the following effects: 

It dries your skin: As we age, our skin gets drier and thinner, and this process is called intrinsic aging. This is a process that we cannot control.  When your skin ages faster than it should be due to environmental and your lifestyle, it's called extrinsic factors. Alcohol is one such extrinsic factor that dehydrates and dries your skin. You can slow down this process but cut down on drinking.  

It slows down your brain: Every drink you take goes right to your brain. Prolonged heavy drinking shrinks the brain cells and can lead to alcohol related brain damage, symptoms of which can include lack of judgment, organization, or emotional control, trouble staying focused, and anger issues. 

It changes how your meds work: Alcohol stays longer in the system as we age. So, when you take your meds, there is a high chance that your last drink is still in your body. Alcohol can affect the way your meds work on your body, and some can even have serious side effects.  Mixing it with certain sleeping pills, pain medications, or anxiety drugs can be life-threatening. Cutting down on alcohol, especially if you are taking medicines, would be a smart move.  

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It can affect the immune system: Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease.  Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases than people who do not drink too much. Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk. 

It can harm your heart: Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart. It can cause problems like Cardiomyopathy which is stretching and drooping of the heart muscle, high blood pressure, stroke and Arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat). 

It hurts your liver: long term heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver and leads to problems like fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis.  

It harms the pancreas: Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.   

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It’s not good for your sexual and reproductive health: Drinking alcohol can lower your inhibitions, so you might assume alcohol can ramp up your fun in the bedroom. Heavy drinking can prevent the production of sexual hormones, lower libido and can make it difficult to achieve an orgasm.  

It affects your skeletal muscles: Binge drinking, or long-term alcohol consumption can cause Alcoholic myopathy that causes loss of function and strength in your skeletal muscles. The symptoms can include muscle pain, cramping, twitching, muscle tightness etc.  

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It affects your bones: Too much alcohol consumption causes the stomach to not absorb calcium adequately. Alcohol interferes with the pancreas and its absorption of calcium and vitamin D which are nutrients essential for bone health. 

It causes malabsorption of nutrients: Alcohol abuse can damage the digestive system, which makes it difficult for the body to absorb nutrients from food. People who drink alcohol excessively are at risk for developing a type of anemia called megaloblastic anemia, which is caused by the body’s inability to produce enough healthy red blood cells. This can be due to a lack of vitamin B12 or folate (also known as vitamin B9) the absorption of which is affected due to alcohol use.  

These long-term side effects of alcoholism can impact other areas of your life such as relationship problems with family or friends, legal trouble, financial issues and poor performance at work or in school. It is hence advisable to cut down on your alcohol intake if not completely stop it.