However, everyone is different, and some people experience a hangover after just one drink. When alcohol goes into the brain, it affects the balance of chemicals and signal processes that can alter thoughts, feelings, and actions. Erica Houskeeper shares her experience with heart disease in her family and getting a calcium score test to pinpoint evidence of plaque in her arteries. If you are concerned about your drinking habits or have an alcohol disorder, talk to your primary care provider about medication and counseling.
Cancer risk
- Evidence suggests that, for the developing brain, the hippocampus is more sensitive to alcohol effects, and adolescents and young adults are more susceptible to alcohol-induced memory impairment than adults.
- Acute pancreatitis can turn into chronic pancreatitis, which is a condition of constant inflammation of the pancreas.
- Blackouts are gaps in a person’s memory for events that occurred while they were intoxicated.
- However, everyone is different, and some people experience a hangover after just one drink.
Having a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a party here and there isn’t going to destroy your gut. But even low amounts of daily drinking and prolonged and heavy use of alcohol can lead to significant problems for your digestive system. If alcohol continues to accumulate in your system, it can destroy cells and, eventually, damage your organs. In general, the more you drink, the more likely you’ll experience such symptoms the next day.
Mental health
- These clinical conditions may be worsened by drinking alcohol and take medications like aspirin that can also cause the same problems.
- Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows the body’s ability to ward off infections–even up to 24 hours later.
- But there’s plenty of research to back up the notion that alcohol does lead to weight gain in general.
- As a result of urinary fluid losses, the concentration of electrolytes in blood serum increases.
While alcohol can make you feel drowsy and groggy, it actually decreases the quality of sleep – even if it feels like you’re falling asleep faster and sleeping longer. To reduce or stop drinking, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests these tips to change your consumption habits. The pancreas sends enzymes to the small intestine to metabolize food.
What Does Alcohol Do to Your Body? 9 Ways Alcohol Affects Your Health
As a result of these and other changes, brain mass shrinks and the brain’s inner cavity grows bigger. People with alcohol use disorder (AUD) often have problems with memory, sleep, and mood long after the alcohol wears off. Gregory adds that long-term heavy drinking can lead to a variety of mental health issues, including alcohol dependency. Research also points to the benefits of reducing alcohol consumption on a person’s mood, memory, and sleep quality. The pancreas is an organ that makes substances that support bodily functions including digestion and metabolism. Alcohol misuse over time can lead to pancreatitis, which can impair the production of digestive enzymes and can affect hormones that regulate blood sugar level.
Pancreas
- “Some people think of the effects of alcohol as only something to be worried about if you’re living with alcohol use disorder, which was formerly called alcoholism,” Dr. Sengupta says.
- If you drink every day, or almost every day, you might notice that you catch colds, flu or other illnesses more frequently than people who don’t drink.
- Steatotic liver disease develops in about 90% of people who drink more than 1.5 to 2 ounces of alcohol per day.
Evidence suggests that, for the developing brain, the hippocampus is more sensitive to alcohol effects, and adolescents and young adults are more susceptible to alcohol-induced memory impairment than adults. With continued alcohol use, steatotic liver disease can lead to liver fibrosis. Eventually, you can develop permanent and irreversible scarring in your liver, which is called cirrhosis. Even moderate drinking—having one drink per day or less—can increase the likelihood does drinking alcohol affect your kidneys of cancers, including breast, oral and throat cancers.
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Evidence shows that regular alcohol use may increase the chances of their cancer returning. Alcohol affects the digestive tract, allowing bacteria to escape and circulate in the bloodstream, potentially causing disease. Heavy alcohol use can disturb the endocrine system, disrupting the hormones that help maintain the body’s stability and health.
“After drinking, you’re less likely to get good REM sleep and you’re more likely to experience nightmares or vivid dreams,” Gregory said. Alcoholics Anonymous is available almost everywhere and provides a place to openly and nonjudgmentally discuss alcohol issues with others who have alcohol use disorder. Long-term alcohol use can change your brain’s wiring in much more significant ways. Like a clog in a drain, those thickened fluids can jam up your ducts. That can lead to pancreatitis, which is inflammation of the pancreas. But there’s plenty of research to back up the notion that alcohol does lead to weight gain in general.
Your trusted resource for reliable and up-to-date health and wellness information in the Northeast. After drug addiction ingestion, alcohol travels down the esophagus into the stomach, where some of it is absorbed into your bloodstream. The unabsorbed alcohol continues to move through the gastrointestinal tract. The majority of it will enter the small intestine and get absorbed into the bloodstream through the walls of the small intestine, or it can stay in the stomach and cause irritation. For more information about alcohol and cancer, please visit the National Cancer Institute’s webpage «Alcohol and Cancer Risk» (last accessed June 6, 2024).
Chronic pancreatitis is a risk factor for the development of pancreatic cancer and diabetes. 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. Long-term, heavy drinking causes alterations in the neurons, such as reductions in their size.
It causes the pancreas to activate these enzymes prematurely and secrete them internally, rather than sending them to the small intestine. Heavy alcohol use raises the risk for fractures and even low levels of alcohol intake increase the odds for recurrent gout attacks. Alcohol also impairs bone fracture repair and reduces bone density.
Steatotic liver disease develops in about 90% of people who drink more than 1.5 to 2 https://kubets.co.com/index.php/2025/04/17/why-do-people-on-fentanyl-bend-over-2/ ounces of alcohol per day. Advanced liver disease impairs this important balancing act, however, by either greatly augmenting or reducing the rates of plasma flow and filtration through a mass of capillaries called the glomeruli. Blackouts are gaps in a person’s memory for events that occurred while they were intoxicated. These gaps happen when a person drinks enough alcohol to temporarily block the transfer of memories from short-term to long-term storage—known as memory consolidation—in a brain area called the hippocampus.
