Your Body and Alcohol
The Immediate, Short and Long Term Effects of Alcohol Use
The First Few Hours After Drinking
Most of the effects of alcohol that people experience during intoxication are due to how it affects the brain. One of the most rapid effects of alcohol is on the central nervous system (CNS), which controls a range of vital body functions including the organs. Under normal circumstances the central nervous system receives sensory information from organs such as the eyes and ears, analyzes it, and then initiates an appropriate response. However, when one is intoxicated the alcohol interferes with the CNS’s ability to analyze sensory information. This results in the typical symptoms of being drunk. Typical symptoms include:
- Decreased motor coordination and balance
- Slurred speech
- Blurred visions
- Sweating
- Loss in judgment
- Dulling one’s sensation of pain (The dulling of pain is why alcohol was used in the past as an anesthetic).
In higher doses, the effects of alcohol on the cerebellum contribute to:
- The loss of balance and coordination
- Loss of the ability to judge distance and heights
- Dizziness.
Alcohols affects on the outer layer of the frontal cortex region of the brain interferes with the conscious thought process contributing to loss of inhibitions. Alcohol is also a diuretic, as it stops the production of the body’s anti-diuretic hormone. The kidneys direct fluids straight to the bladder, making one urinate excessively and speeding up the loss of fluid from the body causing dehydration.
Most of the nasty symptoms of a hangover including headache, dizziness, thirst, paleness and tremors are caused by dehydration.
Detoxification or Coming Down
The liver is the main organ that gets rid of alcohol by breaking it down. It metabolizes about 90% of the alcohol in our body while only about 10% is excreted through either our urine or breath. The liver metabolizes alcohol at the rate of about one standard drink, or .015 – .017, per hour. This is why large doses of alcohol can be fatal. When a person drinks the body responds to large quantities of increased glucose in the system by producing more insulin which removes the glucose. Once the process has started, the insulin carries on working removing glucose from the blood. Low blood glucose levels are responsible for that shaky feeling, heavy sweating, dizziness and blurred vision. Low glucose levels also result in feeling tired.
To overcome this feeling of lethargy and tiredness the body will be craving a carbohydrate boost which is why many people feel hungry when they have been drinking.
Although people often seem to crash out and sleep after drinking, there is evidence to show that after drinking people’s quality of sleep will be effected through dehydration.
How Sleep is Affected
For most students, studying and preparation for tests is essential to academic performance. When alcohol is in your system your brain’s ability to learn and store information is inhibited due to compromising the hippocampus, vital to the formation of new memories. Forming memories is a very complex process and many of your memories are solidified during sleep.
Alcohol interferes with your sleep cycle by disrupting the sequence and duration of normal sleep, thus reducing your brain’s ability to retain information. The REM stage of sleep is compromised after a night of drinking, which is vital to memory. Therefore, even though someone who has been drinking might look as if they are crashed out, they will not be getting the deep sleep that is needed to recharge their batteries. The sleep deprivation suppresses normal hormonal levels decreasing oxygen availability and consumption, thus decreasing endurance.
People are still likely to feel tired after sleeping following a night of drinking as they will have missed out on quality sleep.
Alcohol relaxes the pharyngeal muscles, in the back of the mouth, increasing the likelihood of snoring.
- Consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one night can affect brain and body activities for up to three days.
- Two consecutive nights of drinking five or more alcoholic beverages can affect brain and body activities for up to five days.
- Attention span is shorter for periods up to forty-eight hours after drinking.
- Even small amounts of alcohol BAC of .03 can persist for a substantial period of time after the acute effects of alcohol impairment disappear.
The Morning After
As mentioned earlier, the liver can only metabolize one standard drink or .015- .017 of alcohol per hour, so with larger doses the body is still breaking down alcohol in the morning. A breathalyser test could still be positive in the morning, or if one returns to drinking in the morning for a tailgate or Kegs and Eggs, one’s BAC can be a lot higher than they think.
For example:
John Smith goes to bed at 2:00 a.m. with a BAC of .20. He gets up at 9:00 a.m. with a BAC of .095 (legally intoxicated), at 3:00p.m. the next day he still has a BAC of .005.
The toxicity of alcohol can irritate the stomach causing gastritis (chronic stomach upset) often resulting in retching and vomiting. The toxic effect of alcohol can also cause inflammation of the esophagus, the tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach, causing heartburn. Alcohol often affects the large bowel. The small and large intestines reabsorb salt and water, but alcohol interferes with this process often causing diarrhea.
A throbbing headache is due to the dehydration and the liver trying to rid the body of the toxins.
The Short Term Effects on Muscles, Endurance and Nutrition
Few students realize that consuming alcohol after a workout can cancel out any physiological gains they may have received from the activity. Not only does long-term alcohol use diminish protein synthesis resulting in a decrease in muscle build-up, but even short-term alcohol use can impede muscle growth.
In order to build bigger and stronger muscles, your body needs sleep to repair itself after a workout. Because of alcohol’s effect on sleep, your body is deprived of a chemical called human growth hormone or HGH. HGH is part of the normal muscle building and repair process and the body’s way of telling itself your muscle needs to grow bigger and stronger. Alcohol, however, can decrease the secretion of HGH by as much as 70%.
When alcohol is in your body, it triggers the production of a substance in your liver that is directly toxic to testosterone. Testosterone is essential for the development and recovery of your muscles. As alcohol is absorbed through your stomach and small intestine and into your cells, it can disrupt the water balance in muscle cells, altering their ability to produce adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is your muscles’ source of energy. ATP provides the fuel necessary for your muscles to contract.
Speeding the recovery of sore muscles and injuries is essential to the gains from a workout. On occasion, when a student is injured or sore and doesn’t work out, they may see this as an opportunity to use alcohol. Alcohol is a toxin that travels through your bloodstream to every organ and tissue in your body, causing dehydration and slowing your body’s ability to heal itself.
Ever feel tired and unmotivated after a night of drinking or even a day or two later?
Alcohol holds very little nutritional value. The relatively high calories in alcohol are not available to your muscles. The body treats alcohol as fat, converting alcohol sugars into fatty acids. When alcohol is oxidized by dehydrogenase (the enzyme that breaks down alcohol) it produces an elevation of NADH reducing the production of ATP (which is the muscle’s source of energy), resulting in lack of energy and loss of endurance. Because women have very little of the enzyme dehydrogenase, females experience the primary effect of higher intoxication even when drinking the same amount with a male their same size.
Alcohol use inhibits absorption of important nutrients such as thiamin, vitamin B12, folic acid, and zinc. What do you need these nutrients for?
- Thiamin (B1) is involved in the metabolism of proteins and fat, the formation of hemoglobin, and it metabolizes carbohydrates.
- Vitamin B12 is essential to maintain healthy red blood and nerve cells.
- Folic acid is part of a coenzyme involved in the formation of new cells.
- Zinc is essential to your energy metabolic processes. The depletion of zinc can have an effect on reducing endurance.
Your body needs these vitamins and minerals to be in the correct balance for the body to function normally, This includes potassium along with calcium and sodium, which are known as ions maintained by the kidneys. The level of each ion must be maintained within narrow limits, but dehydration caused by drinking can affect the concentration of ions by draining potassium from the body, resulting in thirst, muscle cramps, dizziness and faintness.
Long Term Effects of Alcohol Use
Health problems can occur after drinking over a relatively short period of time. Addiction to alcohol can occur in as little as an 18 month period of time based on the amount and sometimes frequency of drinking. Genetic factors of a family history of addiction can also greatly speed the process. Women may develop alcohol-related health problems after consuming less alcohol than men do over a shorter period of time. Serious problems such as liver disease, heart disease, certain forms of cancer, and pancreatitis—often develop more gradually and may become evident only after long-term heavy drinking.
Alcohol-related liver disease – Some drinkers develop alcoholic hepatitis, or inflammation of the liver. Alcoholic hepatitis can cause death if drinking continues. If drinking stops, this condition often is reversible. Liver research has shown that probably more than half of the alcohol addicts have fatty liver. After stopping alcohol use, the liver can recover from fatty liver. Alcoholic cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver, happens to about 10-20% of heavy drinkers and can cause death if drinking continues. Although cirrhosis is not reversible, if drinking stops, one’s chances of survival improve considerably.
Heart disease – Moderate drinking of red wine can have beneficial effects on the heart, especially among those at greatest risk for heart attacks, such as men over the age of 45 and women after menopause. But long-term heavy drinking increases the risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, and some kinds of stroke.
Cancer – Long-term heavy drinking increases the risk of developing certain forms of cancer, especially cancer of the esophagus, mouth, throat, and voice box. Women are at slightly increased risk of developing breast cancer if they drink two or more drinks per day. Drinking may also increase the risk for developing cancer of the colon and rectum.
Those who often drink too much run a high risk of suffering physical damage. The level of damage depends on the amount. The organs that are used for the absorption and digestion of alcohol, like the stomach, the liver and the pancreas, are vulnerable.
Pancreatitis – The pancreas helps to regulate the body’s blood sugar levels by producing insulin. The pancreas also has a role in digesting the food we eat. Long-term heavy drinking can lead to pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas. This condition is associated with severe abdominal pain and weight loss. It can be fatal.
Other frequent diseases of the organs are gastritis (infection of the mucous membrane of the stomach) and inflammation of the pancreas. Gastritis can cause stomach bleeding, while inflammation of the pancreas can cause lower absorption of nutrients, leading to problems including loss of weight.
The brain also suffers from continuous abuse. Brain damage, like Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, can occur.