Alcohol Use and Your Health Alcohol Use | Grupo EKonomiKa

After a night of drinking, you may have gaps in memory, in which you recall some details from a situation or event but forget others. Alcohol’s impact on memory and consciousness is based on its effect on the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory and learning. Excessive drinking also commonly causes vision changes, such as blurred vision, double vision, or difficulty focusing.

As you drink an alcoholic beverage, alcohol moves into your bloodstream through the stomach and small intestine. If you are drinking heavily or are worried you may be dependent on alcohol, reach out to a healthcare provider before you start reducing your alcohol consumption to determine the safest way to make changes. Alcohol use can exacerbate mental health conditions, like anxiety and depression, or lead to their onset. For women, more than three drinks on any day or more than seven drinks a week is heavy drinking.

An Offbeat Heart

While casual to moderate drinking may be a part of life for some, excessive or chronic alcohol consumption can significantly impact your body and long-term health. If you drink heavily for a long time, alcohol can affect how your brain looks and works. 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.

Sexual and reproductive health

Alcohol’s impact on cognitive functioning can also make it challenging for people drinking alcohol to form and verbally express coherent thoughts. This slows the communication between brain cells and has a calming effect on the mind and body. This is why you might feel relaxed and as though your stress and tension are melting away when drinking alcohol. It’s also why alcohol can make you feel sleepy or drowsy, especially as your blood alcohol concentration rises. Globally, the WHO European Region has the highest alcohol consumption level and the highest proportion of drinkers in the population.

Deaths from excessive alcohol use‎

Research indicates that heavy alcohol use can also increase the risk of suicide. In the past, moderate drinking was thought to be linked with a lower risk of dying from heart disease and possibly diabetes. After more analysis of the research, that doesn’t seem to be the case. In general, a healthy diet and physical activity have much greater health benefits than alcohol and have been more extensively studied.

Alcohol impairs the signals from the eyes to the brain and affects the muscles that control eye movement, leading to weakened eye-muscle control and decreased peripheral vision (seeing to your left and right sides). Alcohol causes irritation and inflammation along your gastrointestinal (GI) tract, disrupting normal digestive function. Evidence suggests that certain alcoholic beverages, such as wine and beer, appear to accelerate the movement of food and waste through the digestive system, which can lead to diarrhea. Your liver strongest vodkas breaks down alcohol and converts it into a toxin and known carcinogen called acetaldehyde. When you drink large amounts of alcohol or drink more quickly than the liver can metabolize it, alcohol accumulates in your bloodstream, triggering vomiting.

1. The connection between alcohol consumption and your digestive system might not seem immediately clear.
2. Long-term heavy drinkers are much more likely to get illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis.
3. Alcohol use can cause sexual dysfunction, such as difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection and decreased sexual sensations.
4. Many people assume the occasional beer or glass of wine at mealtimes or special occasions doesn’t pose much cause for concern.
5. Binge drinking is behavior that raises blood alcohol levels to 0.08%.

Alcohol’s health effects: What you need to know

PLUS, the latest news on medical advances and breakthroughs from Harvard Medical School experts. Heavy drinking also has been linked to intentional injuries, such as suicide, as well as accidental injury and death. No matter how severe the problem may seem, evidence-based treatment can help people with AUD recover. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. That’s because your body already has processes in place that allow it to store excess proteins, carbohydrates and fats. So, your system prioritizes getting rid of alcohol before it can turn its attention to its other work.