When most people drink alcohol, they think about the good time they will have. However, what they don’t think about is the effect that alcohol has on their body. It is no secret that alcohol addiction and abuse can have serious adverse effects on your physical and mental health. This blog post will discuss the impact of excessive alcohol on your body. It will also provide tips on how to reduce your risk of experiencing these harmful effects. So, if you’re interested in learning more, keep reading!
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Causes Liver Disease
One of the effects of excessive drinking on your body is liver disease. Excessive alcohol consumption can cause two types of liver diseases: fatty liver disease and alcoholic hepatitis. These are both caused when there’s too much fat being produced by the cells in your liver, which leads to inflammation in your organ. This is because when you drink, you’re essentially flooding your body with harmful toxins that it needs to break down into harmless components before sending them back into the bloodstream so they can be carried to other parts of your body.
Alcoholic hepatitis occurs when too many hepatocytes die off. The result? When these cells don’t function properly or aren’t around anymore, this affects how well your liver breaks down food so it can provide nutrients to all systems in your body. The real problem occurs when fat starts to build up in the liver, which causes it to harden and swell. This is known as cirrhosis of the liver because it prevents normal tissue growth within the organ.
Increases Risk Of Cancer
Cancer is one of the effects of excessive drinking on your body. People who drink excessively are more likely to get certain types of cancer, including breast, mouth, throat, liver, and colon cancers. Although there are no numbers that point to how much you should drink per day or week, researchers do know that alcohol increases the risk of cancer in proportion to the amount you drink.
The reason for this has yet to be discovered by scientists. Still, they believe it could be due to the fact that high concentrations of alcohol cause cells in your body called hepatocytes (liver cells) to die faster than they’re able to reproduce. This means that their numbers decrease over time, which affects your liver’s ability to detoxify the body. That’s why it’s essential to limit your drinking to reduce your cancer risk!
Increases Risk Of Heart Disease
Many factors contribute to increased risk for heart disease, including high blood pressure, obesity, lack of exercise, smoking, and drinking excessively. Alcohol causes blood vessels to become larger because it releases chemicals from special brain cells called GABA receptors (gamma-aminobutyric acid). When this chemical hits the brain, it slows down certain functions. This means that when you drink too much alcohol, your blood vessels expand more than they should which increases blood volume in the vessels leading to increased heart rate, causing higher blood pressure and damage to other tissues in the process!
Causes Weight Gain And Dehydration
One study found that people who consumed five or more drinks per day gained an average of 10 pounds over five years. Researchers also found that people who drink and smoke heavily tend to weigh 14 percent more than those who do not. This is because alcohol has zero nutritional value. It doesn’t give your body the nutrients it needs to function properly. As for dehydration, it’s one of the quickest negative effects of excessive drinking on your body because even mild dehydration can lead to fatigue, reduced cognitive ability (e.g., slowed reaction times), and dry mouth.
Causes Digestive Problems
The toxins that alcohol can leave behind in your body are not good for you. One of the ways they harm your health is by changing pH levels in your stomach and intestines, which causes problems with digestion. You see, when you take a drink of alcohol or drink several glasses, it changes how digestive enzymes act in your stomach. This makes the acidity levels higher than usual. You’ll experience nausea, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea when this happens. In addition, since your body is dehydrating more quickly, you’ll also experience dry mouth and thirst.
Causes Anxiety And Depression
When most people drink alcohol, they feel happy or euphoric at first. But as time goes on, the opposite happens; they feel anxious or depressed. That’s because alcohol acts as a sedative in your brain. It slows down how quickly chemicals are able to travel between nerve cells so that certain parts of your brain don’t communicate with each other correctly. Oftentimes, this leads to feelings of anxiety and depression after drinking. In fact, many people with depression resort to drinking to cope.
Conclusion
The effects of excessive alcohol on your body may be more than just physical. Alcohol consumption has been linked to depression and anxiety. Drinking too much can also lead to weight gain or even a loss in muscle mass for men since it slows down memory processing. It also increases your risk of pancreatitis, liver disease, heart disease, and cancer. If you are worried about how drinking affects your health, it is recommended to cut back on what substances you consume. Alcohol can give you a temporary good feeling, but it ends up damaging your organs and overall health in the long run.
