Alcohol Effects on Body Health, Affects of Alcohol on Body Health
Are you moderately consuming red wine because you’ve heard its beneficial against heart disease? If so, have you also heard that alcohol is a toxin.
Did you know that when alcohol enters your system, your body reacts to it like a poison? Your liver goes into overdrive, trying to rid it from your blood quickly. Thus, your liver is especially vulnerable to injurious affects of alcohol.
At this time, the science supporting moderate consumption of red wine is incomplete. What is not clear yet is whether its heart benefits are primarily due to flavonoids and other antioxidants present in red grapes.
If so, eating grapes or drinking red grape juice may offer up the same benefit without the affects of alcohol on body health.
Another area of research interest is whether other lifestyle factors are causing the benefit rather than the alcohol itself. Or whether these other factors coupled with moderate alcohol consumption garners the beneficial health outcomes.
Perhaps its premature to start a regime of devouring red wine ahead of scientific confirmation, especially considering the effects of alcohol on body health. Alcohol affects every organ in your body, potentially causing these body health complications or association with:
- insomnia
- fatty liver
- depression
- malnutrition
- pancreatitis
- amenorrhea
- nerve damage
- delirium tremens
- nausea, vomiting
- alcoholic hepatitis
- brain degeneration
- cirrhosis of the liver
- erectile dysfunction
- high blood pressure
- severe memory loss
- chronic liver disease
- esophageal bleeding
- heart muscle damage
- fetal alcohol syndrome
- cardiovascular disease
- acute alcohol poisoning
- Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
- cancers ~ esophagus, throat, larynx, mouth, breast, liver, colon
Not to mention, mixing alcohol and some drugs puts you at risk for dangerous reactions. Protect yourself by avoiding alcohol if you are taking a medication and don’t know its effect.
These are a couple of specifics for affects of alcohol on body health. Drinking alcohol can damage your small intestine and stomach lining, which affects essential nutrient absorption.
If you are diabetic, alcohol impedes your livers output of blood glucose because your liver is concentrating all its energy on riding your body from the toxin of alcohol. And with diabetes, a very low blood sugar level is a dangerous condition for your body to be in.
Research suggests that as little as one drink per day can slightly raise your breast cancer risk, especially if you are postmenopausal or have a family history.
Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, which may lead to mental retardation and behavior problems in the body health of your offspring. This tragic effect lasts a lifetime, without a cure.
Alcohol increases your risk for osteoporosis by interfering with calcium balance. It raises parathyroid hormone levels, which reduces calcium reserves. Calcium balance is also affected by alcohol’s meddling withvitamin D production, an essential vitamin for calcium absorption.
Alcohol is a depressant, slowing your central nervous system function. It literally blocks some messages from getting to your brain. Hence, altering your perceptions, emotions, movement, vision and hearing.
In small amounts, alcohol may help you feel more relaxed or less anxious. More alcohol causes greater changes, resulting in behaviors that may be detrimental to your body’s health. A catastrophic car accident is just one example.
Alcohol definitely has negative effects on body health. Whereas, a heart healthy diet and exercise has positive effects toward prevention of heart disease too.
Choosing the later offers up numerous other body health benefits as well, leaving out budding alcohol effects.
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