The connection between alcohol consumption and your digestive system might not seem immediately clear. The pancreas helps regulate how your body uses insulin and responds to glucose. If your pancreas and liver don’t function properly due to pancreatitis or liver disease, you could experience low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia. People who binge drink or drink heavily may notice more health effects sooner, but alcohol also poses some risks for people who drink in moderation. Download it now to track your sleep quality, side-by-side with your alcohol consumption and calories.

  1. Over the long term, alcohol can increase your risk of more than 200 different diseases, including in the liver and pancreas, and certain cancers.
  2. Long-term heavy drinkers are much more likely to get illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis.
  3. Each of those consequences can cause turmoil that can negatively affect your long-term emotional health.
  4. Long-term alcohol use can affect bone density, leading to thinner bones and increasing your risk of fractures if you fall.
  5. But heavy drinking carries a much higher risk even for those without other health concerns.

Long-Term Health Risks

Your body can’t make the numbers of white blood cells it needs to fight germs. 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. Normally, this organ makes insulin how to tell when alcohol is affecting your relationships 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.

What Does Alcohol Do to Your Body? 9 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health

It can also make it harder to keep a steady body temperature and control your movements. Heavy drinking means eight or more drinks a week for women and 15 or more for men. Tolerance and dependence can both happen as symptoms of alcohol use disorder, a mental health condition previously referred to as alcoholism, that happens when your body becomes dependent on alcohol.

I want to get healthier

Around 5 percent of the alcohol consumed leaves through the lungs, kidneys and the skin. Since alcohol is a depressant, it can slow the breathing, leading to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Within minutes of consuming alcohol, it is absorbed into the bloodstream by blood vessels in the stomach lining and small intestine. It is commonly misused among individuals of all ages, resulting in significant health, legal, and socio-economic damage.

Binge drinking—and heavy drinking—is a type of alcohol misuse (a spectrum of risky alcohol-related behaviors). In low to moderate alcohol consumption, antioxidants may provide some cardiovascular benefits. 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. Heavy drinking can also lead to a host of health concerns, like brain damage, heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and even certain kinds of cancer.

All content published within Cureus is intended only for educational, research and reference purposes. Additionally, articles published within Cureus should not be deemed a suitable substitute for the advice of a qualified health care professional. Do not disregard or avoid professional medical advice due to content published within Cureus. Take our free, 5-minute substance abuse self-assessment below if you think you or someone you love might be struggling with substance abuse. The evaluation consists of 11 yes or no questions that are intended to be used as an informational tool to assess the severity and probability of a substance use disorder. The test is free, confidential, and no personal information is needed to receive the result.

It also increases the risk of blackouts, especially on an empty stomach. During this time, a person may do things that they do not remember later. NIAAA Director George F. Koob, Ph.D., said that as of May 2023, the institute is not aware of specific health guidelines on alcohol consumption for transgender or gender-nonconforming characteristics of high-functioning alcoholics individuals. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has information on how alcohol impacts your health. It also has resources to help those looking to change their drinking habits. Alcohol use disorder can include periods of being drunk (alcohol intoxication) and symptoms of withdrawal.

Call 911 for help if you suspect someone is experiencing alcohol poisoning. Symptoms can vary from person to person, so it’s best to exercise caution and seek medical help if someone you are with shows signs of extreme alcohol intoxication. Alcohol’s impact on cognitive functioning can also make it challenging for people drinking alcohol to form and verbally express coherent thoughts. Alcohol seldom leaves any system untouched as far as leaving its impression is concerned, spanning from single tissue involvement to complex organ system manifestations. Almost all the major organs that make up a human’s physiological being are dramatically affected by the overconsumption of alcohol. There is an enormous overall economic cost that is paid for alcohol abuse all over the world.

Past guidance around alcohol use generally suggests a daily drink poses little risk of negative health effects — and might even offer a few health benefits. 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. alcohol use disorder treatment Since those effects don’t last long, you might not worry much about them, especially if you don’t drink often. Several sleepless nights can have an impact on your day-to-day mental function – for example, your mood, concentration and decision-making. Alcohol might help you fall asleep, but even a couple of drinks can affect the quality of your sleep.

Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including the most common cancer types, such as bowel cancer and female breast cancer. You can reduce your risk of alcohol injuries by choosing not to consume alcohol. If you do choose to drink, take the necessary precautions to stay safe.

In liver diseases linked with alcohol, liver cirrhosis is a major concern. Statistics show that liver cirrhosis is one of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and this in itself indicates the severity of the same [16]. The changing lifestyle and also many people turning to prolonged alcohol intake for many years are contributing to the increased number of liver cirrhosis patients in the modern world. In liver cirrhosis patients, there occurs an increased severity of fibrosis due to the loss of parenchyma and fibrous scar proliferation [17].