What Are the Effects of Alcohol on the Human Body and Brain?

Question

As I have discussed with the group members earlier, alcohol interference with the metabolism can result in adverse consequences, what do you think, for instance? Such as?

Answer 1

The substance ethyl alcohol, or alcohol, contains lethal and addictive characteristics. Classified as a depressant, alcohol affects both the brain and the body, lowers inhibitions, increases feelings of social anxiety, and alters mental capacity. It likewise has retarding qualities as it can lead to relaxation or happiness via serotone and dopamine release which is however, a high carbohydrate, depressant. Short term effects would include moderate outbursts, a disconnect with self and the rest of the world, some degree of tumbling due to misplaced balance and so on. Long term or chronic abuse of these substances has effects including coronary artery diseases, cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes /obesity, steroid induced sexual dysfunction, suppression of testosterone levels and increased vulnerability to developing various cancers. This also progresses to brain degeneration that may lead to stroke and cases of dementia.

Comments

This is one of the best explanations about the affects of alcohol I have seen. I wish I could have seen this 50 years ago. Luckily, I came to my senses about 8 years ago and gave up alcohol. The quality of life contrast, before and after, is significant. Thank you Dan and GCN for this series.

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Nice job summarizing and not sensationalizing the impact of alcohol! I'm a beer/wine drinker and I'm sure there are points in my life that I would've been considered an alcoholic based on the volume of consumption. My younger self could handle it no problem. I could go to bed at 2 and be up by 6 and off to work easily. My 57 year old self can handle 4-6 beers/week. I'm sure in 10 years I'll be down to a few beers a month. Those will be very good beers!

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the number of people I know who quit drinking entirely and improved their lives tenfold by doing so is truly inspiring and a wonderful thing to see. friends who though they were incapable of getting in shape or being positive absolutely astounded to discover that all those beers and shots weren't helping them at all but were actually the one thing holding them down and choking the life and love out of them sip by sip.

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One of the reasons why alcohol is bad for you is that alcohol breakdown - mainly in the liver - involves two steps. Alcohol being converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme ADH and then the  acetaldehyde being converted to acetate by the enzyme ALDH2. Both these steps require an important coenzyme called NAD+ (which gets reduced to NADH). Studies in animals have shown that there is a major drop in NAD+ levels in the liver and blood following significant alcohol consumption as it gets used up in the above two biochemical steps. Persistent low levels of NAD+ can increase inflammation plus a whole host of other side effects because NAD+ is involved in numerous bodily functions (or chemical reactions). People with fatty liver have low levels of NAD+ in the liver. Many other disease conditions come with lower levels of NAD+. Studies in animals have shown that if you boost the level of NAD+ by taking NAD+ boosting compounds, it protects the liver from injury caused by alcohol. This makes a lot of  scientific sense. The study is yet to be replicated in humans, but I bet it will be same in humans too. Hence, if one would take these NAD+ boosters before consuming large amounts of alcohol, you may bae able to prevent the reduction in levels o NAD+ and protect your liver (and possibly other organs too). The most common NAD boosters are Nicotinic acid, Nicotinamide, Nicotinamide riboside and Nicotinamide mononucleotide. However, alcohol does contain a lot of calories and you tend to eat more with alcohol which can cause obesity

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How ironic that they showed a Heineken ad during this content   
However, I went from being a casual drinker in my twenties to going sober 6 months ago at the age of 30, and I never imagined how much it would improve my life. I’m better at setting priorities, sleeping, working, resting, exercising… but most importantly, I’m happier than ever