How much alcohol is too much?

It’s Wednesday and I wanted to bring your attention to something, which would be your well-being. Check-in with yourself, if you are alcohol dependent? Do you need alcohol to relax or have fun? Or unwind? Often saying: It’s wine o’ clock? Beer time? Weekend = alcohol binge? Can a glass of wine keep the doctor away?

Not so quick there! It’s not the same as alcohol use and abuse. Well, I know I’d be treading unsafe waters, but it is my responsibility to spread awareness and I am going to do EXACTLY that.

This week and next week. I will be focusing on Alcohol and its impact on the body.

Different countries’ public health services have listed many different measurements of daily alcohol intake.

With allowed intake of alcohol being recommended as 4 standard glasses in a day (which most sources forget to mention, is also the amount one can consume in almost 2 weeks, not just a day of the week). We are getting more alcohol dependent as though we can’t have fun without it. Alcohol being consumed 10 fold more than ever, this era.

Going beyond this “standard intake” of alcohol has proven to result in, anxiety, depression, severe temperaments, mood swings, low testosterone levels, fatty liver (again, not a joke to have that beer belly, as it indicates fat around your internal organs, which is far more dangerous that a chubby subcutaneous fat), uneven skin tone, dark circles, dehydrated body.

 

When we consume alcohol sparingly it is alright. Anything that goes above 4 “standard drinks” which should come to 40 gms of alcohol during s day & within a fortnight can cause:

?Underutilization of energy storage (in other words body’s metabolism).

?Reproductive concerns (for both males and females); Can lead to male breast enlargement, altered sperm count, early menopause for women & low ovarian count.

?Changes in blood sugar and blood cholesterol.

?Depletes bone mass (as high alcohol consumptions can make one deficient in calcium, changes the thyroid and parathyroid gland disrupts the vitamin D metabolism and absorption, and even eats up muscle mass).

?Increases cortisol in the bod (so that initial excitement soon changes to severe distress for the body), which in the long term leads to severe irregularities in emotion control, release of digestive enzymes in the body and even wound repair.

 

Today, more and more of us are dependent on alcohol to either enjoy an evening or unwind and relax. As though without it, our existence cannot be fun. Ever wondered why? 

Do we really need alcohol to make us “fun” and “not boring”?

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), defines binge drinking as having alcohol over 4 drinks on a usual day and claims, alcohol abuse if this is practiced more than 4 times of the month. 

Moderate drinking is about stopping at one or two drinks and only having it once a month, not every other weekend, which is considered alcohol dependency or in some cases alcohol abuse. With the number of people “wanting to enjoy life” these days, there is more and more conclusive data to prove what this is doing to our systems. Last week, I spoke about anxiety and panic attacks and much of alcohol consumption leads to that, depression and brain fog. 

 

And here’s a fun fact for you!

The primary enzymes involved in alcohol metabolism are called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH). Now, women often have lower ADH activity than men. So, women metabolize alcohol much more slowly than men (it’s not a competition, my ladies), we do become more vulnerable. Women’s bodies have more fat and less water than men’s bodies, on average. This results in higher blood alcohol levels in women, even if they drink the same amount as men. But having said that, I want to say, men, you are prone to causing more damage to your livers and pancreas with this, higher chances of blood pressure and blood sugar.

 

 

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