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Alcohol affects the nutritional state of chronic drinkers. It can decrease food consumption and lead to malabsorption. It can also create imbalances in skeletal muscle mass and cause muscle wasting. Chronic consumption of alcohol can also increase the breakdown of important proteins in the body which can affect gene expression. [159]
The UK National Health Service states that "an occasional drink is unlikely to harm" a breastfed baby, and recommends consumption of "no more than one or two units of alcohol once or twice a week" for breastfeeding mothers (where a pint of beer or 50 ml drink of a spirit such as whisky corresponds to about two units of alcohol). [67]
Alcohol has been known to mitigate the production of antidiuretic hormone, which is a hormone that acts on the kidney to favor water reabsorption in the kidneys during filtration. This occurs because alcohol confuses osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus , which relay osmotic pressure information to the posterior pituitary , the site of ...
As alcohol starts its journey down a person's throat, it can do DNA damage in oral cells. People who smoke are able to absorb more carcinogenic chemicals in tobacco if they are drinking at the ...
“Over time, this repeated damage can result in cirrhosis, where the liver becomes so scarred that it loses functionality,” she explains. This may eventually raise the risk of liver cancer. 2.
Alcohol consumption can be especially dangerous for those with pre-existing liver damage from hepatitis B or C. Even relatively low amounts of alcohol can be life-threatening in these cases, [222] so a strict adherence to abstinence is highly recommended. [223]
Food such as fructose can increase the rate of alcohol metabolism. The effect can vary significantly from person to person, but a 100 g dose of fructose has been shown to increase alcohol metabolism by an average of 80%. In people with proteinuria and hematuria, fructose can cause falsely high BAC readings, due to kidney-liver metabolism. [106]
It can damage all the organ systems, but especially affects the brain, heart, liver, pancreas and immune system. [4] [5] Heavy alcohol usage can result in trouble sleeping, and severe cognitive issues like dementia, brain damage, or Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome.