Negative impacts of alcohol on health

How alcohol affects your health? There are several negative impacts of alcohol on health, as the consumption of drinks with a high alcohol content generates a series of diseases that affect your quality of life.

In fact, the effects are different for each individual, even if consumption is in equal amounts.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is no amount of alcohol that is safe and completely risk-free. However, some health institutions advise that consumption be 3 doses per day at most, not being recommended to exceed 7 doses per week.

In any case, it is worth paying attention to the negative impacts of alcohol on health and below we list 10 of them. Check it out!

Muscle loss and fat gain

Alcohol is high in sugar and has so-called empty calories. This causes it to inhibit fat burning by over 70%. Not to mention that it compromises muscle gain, decreasing the hormone responsible for muscle mass gain by more than 30%.

As if all these negative effects weren’t enough, alcohol also uses up the body’s calcium and decreases protein synthesis.

Therefore, everything culminates in fat gain, inefficient performance in training, loss of muscle mass and inadequate recovery after physical activity.

Circulatory system problems

One of the negative impacts of alcohol on health is that it can cause problems in the circulatory system, affecting the heart and blood vessels.

Just to give you an idea, alcoholics tend to have a much higher risk of suffering from heart disease than people who do not consume alcohol.

So, when talking about respiratory problems, several diseases arise, such as:

• Hypertension;
• Stroke;
• Heart disease and much more.

Interferes with blood sugar levels

The pancreas is the organ responsible for regulating insulin and glucose in the body. When he and the liver don’t work as expected, a drop in sugar levels occurs, called hypoglycemia.

As a result, the person who consumed alcohol may experience symptoms related to diabetes. For this reason, those suffering from diabetes and hypoglycemia should avoid drinking too much alcohol.

Reduces testosterone

One of the negative health impacts of alcohol is that it lowers testosterone, and both men and women need this hormone for motivation and sexual desire.

So, in women, for example, low testosterone leads to fat gain and depression. Already in men, the low of this hormone causes reduced libido and erectile dysfunction.

One study measured testosterone levels before and after drinking alcohol. The discovery was that there was a drop of more than 24% of testosterone in the fall of the hormone in that alcoholic.

So when blood alcohol levels are too high, testosterone naturally goes down.

Premature aging is one of the negative impacts of alcohol on health

In addition to everything you’ve seen here, alcohol also destroys collagen fibers in the skin, causing joint problems and decreasing skin fat.

Therefore, these inflammatory processes end up causing you to suffer from premature aging. In fact, aging that happens from the inside out.

Anemia

One of the negative impacts of alcohol on health is anemia. This is because it is very common malnutrition that is directly related to alcohol consumption for a long time.

After all, its intake makes it difficult to absorb nutrients, causing vitamin B12 deficiency. So, the picture can become macrocytic anemia, where the formation of red blood cells is altered, compromising the oxygen to reach the cells.

Brain damage

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, which directly interferes with brain mechanisms. Therefore, its excessive consumption causes difficulty in reasoning, in addition to promoting changes in sleep and causing the feeling of “fragmented”.

Thus, if the use is made chronically, for example, it can cause various damages, such as difficulty in balancing, problems with dementia, serious and irreversible condition, and many other health damages.

Conclusion

These are some of the negative impacts of alcohol on health, yet there are many others. Therefore, it is essential to reduce the consumption of alcoholic beverages to ensure a better quality of life.