Live Everyday Glamourous

Alcohol ain't Glamourous

Health | Learn what alcohol does to your body

April 9, 2023 Everyday Glamourous

Amounts of alcohol

People who drank 1–2 drinks on average per day (which is considered “low amounts”) experienced a thinning of the neocortex.
If you drink 7-14 drinks per week there is degeneration of neurons.
12 – 24 drinks per week, or more, on average is very high and causes serious neurodegeneration.
Which is a slow and progressive loss of neuronal cells in specified regions of the brain.

The “On average” is important. It means that if you have 1–2 drinks a day, or 3 each day of the weekend, you’ll have the negative effects either way.

Alcohol and your metabolism

Alcohol is water soluble and fat-soluble. It mean it can pass through all the cells and tissues of the body.
This explains whey it can surpass the brain protective barrier (blood brain barrier) and can enter your brain.
When you ingest ethanol (alcohol), which is a toxic substance, the body has to convert it. The liver converts ethanol into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is still a poison to the body, it kills cells.

Then, the body converts acetaldehyde into acetate, which is something that the body can use as fuel.
If the body can’t do this conversion fast enough, acetaldehyde will build up in the body and cause a lot more damage.
This conversion happens in the liver and is metabolically costly. There’s no real nutritive value in the calories. That’s why alcohol is “empty calories”.

Alcohol Effects

When you drink it gets into the gut, goes to the stomach and then into the liver.
The liver immediatly starts converting the ethanol into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is what leads to the effect of being drunk, which is a poison-induced disruption.

Regular drinkers, when they drink, feel very energized and feel very good. Occasional drinkers have a briefer period of feeling good.

Some amounts of acetaldehyde and acetate cross the blood-brain barrier, so they pass into the brain.
There’s a suppression in the activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex. The area that is involved in thinking, planning, and suppression of impulsive behavior.
Alcohol suppresses the neural networks that are involved in memory formation and storage.
There are also long-term neural circuit changes. The more often people drink, there are changes in the circuits that underlie habitual and impulsive behavior in ways that make those people more impulsive outside the times in which they are drinking.
And when they drink, impulsive behavior is even stronger.

This aspect is fortunately reversible. If there’s a period of abstinence these neural circuits can return to normal, except in cases where the amount of alcohol was massive and was ingested throughout a huge number of years.

If you eat something prior to or while drinking alcohol, it will slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, particularly if it includes all major macronutrients (carbs, fats, and protein).
Are you already drunk and eat something, then it won’t diminish your drunkenness.

Alcohol disrupts the mood circuits, by first making them hyperactive. Then serotonin levels drop. Serotonin is a chemical messenger (neurotransmitter) that helps brain and nervous system cells communicate.
That’s why people feel less good, and go for another drink. But as people drink more and more, there’s a depression of alertness and arousal.
Then people pass out, get sleepy, etc because the brain cannot communicate anymore.

Chronic drinkers and people with a genetic predisposition for alcoholism, as they ingest more and more, they feel great under this slumber of the brain.
Factors that might explain the propensity for alcoholism:
Energy: If you see someone who is energized by alcohol all night drink after drink, that’s someone who is more likely to have problems with alcoholism.
Blackouts: if you are someone who suffers blackouts, then the likelihood of having problems with alcohol increases.
Age: People who start drinking at younger ages, are more predisposed to developing alcohol dependence, regardless of family history.

Alcohol changes the relationship between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenals is the HPA axis.
People who regularly drink have elevated baseline levels of cortisol not just when drinking, but always. Cortisol is our stress hormone so as a consequence, these people have more anxiety and stress.

People who ingest alcohol are inducing a disruption in the gut microbiome, which is extremely important for overall health. Alcohol kills bacteria so also the healthy gut microbiota.
Alcohol also induces a release of inflammatory cytokines.
The lining of the gut is disrupted, so you can develop a leaky gut. Which means that bad bacteria can pass into the bloodstream.
The disruption of the gut microbiome and the inflammatory features of alcohol impairs the neural circuits that control the regulation of alcohol intake, which in consequence causes more drinking.

Sleep after alcohol is not as good, so even if you think you are “sleeping like a baby”, the architecture of sleep is disrupted.
The sleep after drinking alcohol is not high quality.

Alcohol the long term impacts

Tips after drinking alcohol:

- Replenish the gut microbiota and eat two-Four servings of fermented foods per day.
- Deliberate cold exposure: increasing levels of epinephrine helps with alcohol clearance and helps agains the headache.
However, be careful!
Alcohols lower core body temperature. If you do cold exposure with alcohol in your system, there’s the possibility of experiencing hypothermia, because alcohol disrupts how your body regulates temperature.
- Ingest Electrolytes alcohol is a diuretic. It causes dehydration, so ake sure you ingest enough electrolytes like: sodium, potassium, and magnesium to replenish the proper levels, and drink two glasses of water for every alcoholic drink.