Alcohol (2024)

FAQs

What does alcohol do to you? ›

Potential short-term effects of alcohol include hangover and alcohol poisoning, as well as falls and accidents, conflict, lowered inhibitions and risky behaviours. Long-term alcohol consumption contributes to more than 200 different types of diseases and injury.

Heart and circulation. Alcohol can cause high blood pressure, which increases your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Alcohol also weakens heart muscles, which can affect the lungs, liver, brain and other body systems, and also cause heart failure.

In short, the answer from current research is, the less alcohol, the better. A note on drinking level terms used in this Core article: The 2020-2025 U.S. Dietary Guidelines states that for adults who choose to drink alcohol, women should have 1 drink or less in a day and men should have 2 drinks or less in a day.

NIAAA defines heavy drinking as follows: For men, consuming five or more drinks on any day or 15 or more per week. For women, consuming four or more on any day or 8 or more drinks per week.

ANSWER: Occasional beer or wine with dinner, or a drink in the evening, is not a health problem for most people. When drinking becomes a daily activity, though, it may represent progression of your consumption and place you at increased health risks.

Organs known to be damaged by long-term alcohol misuse include the brain and nervous system, heart, liver and pancreas. Heavy drinking can also increase your blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels, both of which are major risk factors for heart attacks and strokes.

Studies show that heavy drinking reduces life expectancy by up to 28 years. Drinking more than two beers a day can increase chances of developing fatty liver disease, or cirrhosis. Many beers are high in calories, so drinking large amounts frequently can lead to substantial weight gain.

Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, and dependence-producing substance and has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago – this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco.

The World Health Organization declared last year that no amount of alcohol is safe for one's health. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that, if people choose to drink, men consume two drinks or less per day and women have one daily drink or less.

While the occasional drink may not be cause for concern, indulging in binge drinking once a week can have severe consequences for both physical and mental health.

Is 3 beers a day too much? ›

Research suggests drinking more than 30 grams of alcohol — found in two to three 12-ounce or 355-mL bottles of beer — daily can raise your risk of liver diseases like cirrhosis, a condition characterized by scarring ( 21 , 22 ).

For women, more than three drinks on any day or more than seven drinks a week is heavy drinking. For men, heavy drinking means more than four drinks on any day or more than 14 drinks a week.

To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level if you drink most weeks: men and women are advised not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis.

Risk of Addiction and Dependence

Regularly consuming 12 beers a day can lead to addiction and dependence on alcohol. Dependence on alcohol can create a compulsion to drink, leading to increased alcohol intake over time. This could further deteriorate physical and mental health and potentially decrease life expectancy.

When you drink alcohol, you don't digest alcohol. It passes quickly into your bloodstream and travels to every part of your body. Alcohol affects your brain first, then your kidneys, lungs and liver. The effect on your body depends on your age, gender, weight and the type of alcohol.

Since alcohol can increase the body's production of dopamine and serotonin, two of the body's 'happy hormones', it can temporarily make us feel less anxious. Long term drinking, however, can lower levels of both these hormones as well as lowering blood sugar and increasing dehydration, leading to worse anxiety.

Alcohol interferes with the brain's communication pathways and can affect the way the brain looks and works. Alcohol makes it harder for the brain areas controlling balance, memory, speech, and judgment to do their jobs, resulting in a higher likelihood of injuries and other negative outcomes.

If you're in good shape, moderate drinking makes you 25% to 40% less likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or hardened arteries. This may be in part because small amounts of alcohol can raise your HDL ("good" cholesterol) levels. Heavy drinking, on the other hand, boosts your risk of heart disease.