Author: Charles Frank

Excessive Alcohol Use and Risks to Women’s Health

Drinking too much alcohol over time may cause inflammation of the pancreas, resulting in pancreatitis. Pancreatitis can activate the release of pancreatic digestive enzymes and cause abdominal pain. Here’s a breakdown of alcohol’s effects on your internal organs and body processes. Alcohol can cause both short-term effects, such as lowered inhibitions, and long-term effects, including a weakened immune system. Dehydration-related effects, like nausea, headache, and dizziness, might not appear for a few hours, and they can also depend on what you drink, how much you drink, and if you also drink water. Some of these effects, like a relaxed mood or lowered inhibitions, might show up quickly after just one drink.

Theories suggest that for certain people drinking has a different and stronger impact that can lead to alcohol use disorder. The context of drinking plays an important role in the occurrence of alcohol-related harm, particularly as a result of alcohol intoxication. Alcohol consumption can have an impact not only on the incidence of diseases, injuries and other health conditions, but also on their outcomes and how these evolve over time. WHO is currently developing an action plan (2022–2030) to effectively implement the global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol as a public health priority. Alcohol is a toxic and psychoactive substance with dependence producing properties.

If you drink, you’ve probably had some experience with alcohol’s effects, from the warm buzz that kicks in quickly to the not-so-pleasant wine headache, or the hangover that shows up the next morning. Since those effects don’t last long, you might not worry much about them, especially if you don’t drink often. Health, safety and socioeconomic problems attributable to alcohol can be reduced when governments formulate and implement appropriate policies. The harmful use of alcohol can also result in harm to other people, such as family members, friends, co-workers and strangers. Because denial is common, you may feel like you don’t have a problem with drinking.

1. That limits blood flow, so liver cells don’t get what they need to survive.
2. Your stomach wants to get rid of the toxins and acid that alcohol churns up, which gives you nausea and vomiting.
3. Some of these effects, like a relaxed mood or lowered inhibitions, might show up quickly after just one drink.

It also includes binge drinking — a pattern of drinking where a male has five or more drinks within two hours or a female has at least four drinks within two hours. In addition, enforcing drink driving countermeasures and securing access to screening, brief interventions, and treatment are effective and ethically sound interventions. The most cost-effective interventions are at the focus of WHO-led SAFER initiative aimed at providing support for Member States in reducing the harmful use of alcohol. Alcohol as an intoxicant affects a wide range of structures and processes in the central nervous system and increases the risk for intentional and unintentional injuries and adverse social consequences. Alcohol has considerable toxic effects on the digestive and cardiovascular systems. Alcoholic beverages are classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and increase the risk of several cancer types.

Excessive drinking includes binge drinking, heavy drinking, and any drinking by pregnant women or people younger than age 21. A variety of factors which affect the levels and patterns of alcohol consumption and the magnitude of alcohol-related problems in populations have been identified at individual and societal levels. Too much alcohol affects your speech, muscle coordination and vital centers of your brain. A heavy drinking binge may even cause a life-threatening coma or death. This is of particular concern when you’re taking certain medications that also depress the brain’s function.

An Offbeat Heart

You might not recognize how much you drink or how many problems in your life are related to alcohol use. Listen to relatives, friends or co-workers when they ask you to examine your drinking habits or to seek help. Consider talking with someone who has had a problem with drinking but has stopped. A weakened immune system has a harder time protecting you from germs and viruses. Long-term alcohol use can affect bone density, leading to thinner bones and increasing your risk of fractures if you fall.

It qualitatively compares their design and provides estimates… Alcohol irritates the lining of your stomach and makes your digestive juices flow. If enough acid and alcohol build up, you get nauseated and you may throw up. It can also lead to irritation of the lining of the stomach, called gastritis.

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Drinking heavily for a long time has been linked to hearing loss. Normally, this organ makes insulin and other chemicals that help your intestines break down food. Along with toxins from alcohol, they can cause inflammation in the organ over time, which can lead to serious damage. After years, that means you won’t be able to make the insulin you need, which can lead to diabetes. Alcohol use can factor into mental health symptoms that closely resemble those of other mental health conditions. People who drink heavily over a long period of time are also more likely to develop pneumonia or tuberculosis than the general population.

So for 24 hours after drinking too much, you’re more likely to get sick. Long-term heavy drinkers are much more likely to get illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis. Certain factors may increase your chances of experiencing alcohol use disorder.

Over time, it causes heart muscles to droop and stretch, like an old rubber band. Your heart can’t pump blood as well, and that impacts every part of your body. If you drink heavily for a long time, alcohol can affect how your brain looks and works.

Alcohol’s physical effects on the body

In many of today’s societies, alcoholic beverages are a routine part of the social landscape for many in the population. This is particularly true for those in socialenvironments with high visibility and societal influence, nationally and internationally, where alcohol frequently accompanies socializing. In this context, it is easy to overlook or discount the health and social damage caused or contributed to bydrinking. There are gender differences in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity, as well as levels and patterns of alcohol consumption. The percentage of alcohol-attributable deaths among men amounts to 7.7 % of all global deaths compared to 2.6 % of all deaths among women. Total alcohol per capita consumption in 2016 among male and female drinkers worldwide was on average 19.4 litres of pure alcohol for males and 7.0 litres for females.

Drinking alcohol can also lead to muscle weakness, cramping, and eventually atrophy. Ulcers can cause dangerous internal bleeding, which can sometimes be fatal without prompt diagnosis and treatment. Experts recommend avoiding excessive amounts of alcohol if you have diabetes or hypoglycemia.

The heat from that extra blood passes right out of your body, causing your temperature to drop. On the other hand, long-term heavy drinking boosts your blood pressure. It makes your body release stress hormones that narrow blood vessels, so your heart has to pump harder to push blood through. A significant proportion of the disease burden attributable to alcohol consumption arises from unintentional and intentional injuries, including those due to road traffic crashes, violence, and suicide. Fatal alcohol-related injuries tend to occur in relatively younger age groups. Alcohol is a psychoactive substance with dependence-producing properties that has been widely used in many cultures for centuries.

Risk factors for alcohol use disorder

This can lead to hyperglycemia, or too much sugar in the blood. In some people, the initial reaction may feel like an increase in energy. But as you continue to drink, you become drowsy and have less control over your actions. Women can reduce the amount of alcohol they drink to reduce their risk of harms.

As they die off, the liver gets scars and stops working as well, a disease called cirrhosis. Your brain helps your body stay well-hydrated by producing a hormone that keeps your kidneys from making too much urine. But when alcohol swings into action, it tells your brain to hold off on making that hormone. That means you have to go more often, which can leave you dehydrated. When you drink heavily for years, that extra workload and the toxic effects of alcohol can wear your kidneys down. Many people with alcohol use disorder hesitate to get treatment because they don’t recognize that they have a problem.