Episode 119. How Alcohol Affects Your Health
In this episode, I briefly outline the potential pros of drinking alcohol. You should know there are not many. I then break down the process of alcohol metabolism, what is happening in your body when you drink alcohol. In addition, I explain how it affects your brain and gut over the long term and in the short term. I discuss the impacts it has on your mood and feelings of well-being. Lastly, I discuss the foods you can eat to slow the absorption of alcohol and help support your gut and ultimately your brain after having ingested alcohol. And of course, I briefly touch on possible ways to reduce hangovers.
I just want to state that I am not a medical professional. And you should take anything I say with a grain of salt, like anything you hear on the internet really. I am just here to share my personal experience with alcohol and the things I wish I had learned about alcohol much, much sooner.
Papers referenced:
Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes in the UK Biobank: https://go.nature.com/3PNFj7y
Alcohol and Gut-Derived Inflammation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513683/
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Episode 119. How Alcohol Affects Your Health
Your brain increases serotonin, which is the happiness and mood. Hormone and dopamine which is involved in emotions and help to regulate your mood. Alcohol disrupts this whole communication as it kills the bacteria in your gut. Now I know this all sounds very dreary and negative so far, but a positive
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Hello my friends, welcome back to another episode of the Insitu Health and Fitness podcast. My name is Mark Rikers. I'm a nutrition coach and psychology student and this is my second solo episode. Before I get started with anything today, I just wanted to thank every single one of you listening who tuned into my last solar episode on nutrients and brain help. I got so much support and love for that episode and it just. Made me even more excited to record future episodes.
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Now I'm not going to lie, I am a little bit anxious about recording today's episode because it is a very controversial topic and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I figured since it is the silly season. I thought it would be fitting for me to talk about alcohol. And the effects that alcohol has on your health now, by no means do I want to, I guess, ruin alcohol for you. I know some people genuinely enjoy drinking alcohol for the taste and the experience, but I also think that I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't share the things that I now know about alcohol. In today's episode, I'm going to briefly outline the potential prose of drinking alcohol. You should know that there aren't very many. I will then break down the process of alcohol metabolism. What is happening in your body when you drink alcohol? In addition, I'll explain how it affects your brain and your gut over the long term, and in the short term I discuss the impacts it has on your mood and feelings of well-being. And lastly, I will discuss the foods that you can eat to slow the absorption of alcohol and help support your gut and ultimately your brain. And of course, I will briefly touch on the possible ways you can reduce your hangover. So before we get into the nitty gritty of things, I just wanted to state that I am not a medical professional and that you should take anything that I say with a grain of salt. Like anything else that you hear on the Internet. Really I am just here to share my personal experience with alcohol and the things that I wish I had of learned about alcohol much, much sooner. Let's start with the pros of drinking alcohol. I think that the most obvious Pro is alcohol's. Ability to make you feel more social and more confident.
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I think that that seems to be one of the most common reasons that people choose to drink alcohol. I think that is definitely the most common reason that I used to drink alcohol and that is probably one of the hardest. Was one of the hardest things for me to change when or rather than change endure when I decided that I wanted to start drinking less, now obviously with most things. There is a a line with this being a pro. So obviously if you are having one or two glasses of your alcohol of choice when you have a big event or you're nervous about something or you just want to, I guess, loosen up before a social event, then I would say that that is healthy behavior and healthy alcohol intake. However, if you find yourself relying on alcohol to make you a fun person or to make an event. Or to allow you to just go out and socialize in general. I think that that is when this point can become a con. So you just have to identify for yourself if what side of the line are you on how you're using alcohol. Really. The second pro that I thought I would touch on quickly is that I think that alcohol can complement a meal, like when you go out to a nice Italian restaurant. And you get like a wine and a pasta that go well together, or you go to a Mexican restaurant and you want to have like a tequila with your tacos or something like that. However, enhancing your dinner experience doesn't mean that you have to get drunk again like the first pro. I think that this pro also has a line. So if you're drinking alcohol, one or two glasses again, just to really like enhance the flavor of your food or enhance your experience, I think that that would classify as a pro, but then if you are
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often taking it the next step further and getting drunk every time you go out for dinner. Then I think that that is when it would become a con really. So they're my two pros for alcohol. One, it can make you more social in the rack circumstances, and two, it can definitely complement meals as long as you do it correctly. So how much is an OK amount of alcohol to drink? Well, I would say none. Or occasionally I would say one to two glasses very occasionally like. On special occasions is a healthy amount because your body can get rid of it and there isn't going to be a buildup and a long term negative effect on your brain or the cells in your body. Now, a recent study conducted in the UK showed that drinking 3 to 4 drinks a night clearly increases neurodegeneration in the outer layer of your brain. And that is the area that's involved with your memory, your planning and your mood regulation. So you might think, well, three to four drinks is a lot or three to four drinks might be a normal amount for you. However, people drinking one to two drinks a night or 7 to 14 drinks on the weekend also were shown to suffer brain degeneration. I think that that that second group, the group that drank 1 to 2 drinks a night or 7 to 14 on the weekend is quite. When I was younger, that was easily my my minimum amount of alcohol consumed. So let's actually break down a little bit what is going on in your body. Alcohol is water soluble and fat soluble, which means that when you drink alcohol, it can pass into all of the cells and tissues in your body. And the fact that it can do that is what makes alcohol so damaging to your cells. Not everything can
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get inside all of our cells, the cells in our body and the cells in our neurons in our brain. When you drink alcohol, a coenzyme called NAD converts alcohol into a poisonous chemical known as acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde kills your cells. The body then turns acetaldehyde into acetate, which can then actually be used as energy. However, the energy from alcohol is purely empty calories, which I'm sure Jack and I have spoken about on the podcast in the past, meaning that it contains no nutrients, no vitamins, no minerals. If your body cannot complete the process of turning alcohol into acetaldehyde and then into acetate. Fast enough, that is when acetaldehyde can build up in your body and cause more damage. So we want our body to be efficient at that process. We want our body to be able to turn acetaldehyde, the poison, into acetate so that we can use it as calories and essentially get rid of it. And when we our body is slow at that process, the poison builds up in our body and in ourselves and in our liver. This whole process takes place in the liver, so our cells in the liver take the biggest beating because they are often exposed to acetaldehyde and if you are drinking on a daily basis, even on a weekly basis. There can often be a buildup of acetaldehyde in your liver. So when you feel drunk that is caused by a seed aldehyde, the poison, the drunk feeling like the the. I can't even describe what it feels like do drunk anymore. It's been so long. But that feeling is what is caused by the poison being present in your body. So when some people can feel
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drunk from one to two drinks, myself included now. It is because my body is no longer as efficient as at processing acetaldehyde into acetate. So the poison spends more time in my body. Hence I get drunk faster and I am, what they say, a cheap date. Now in the brain. Firstly, there is a suppression in the activity of neurons in your prefrontal cortex. This is the part of your brain that is in control of your thinking, your planning and suppression. Of impulsive behaviors. Have you noticed how at parties people slowly start to become louder and dance more and say things they wouldn't normally say the more that they drink? That is a direct result of the prefrontal cortex being shut down. You might have heard that this is also the last area of the brain to develop in 10 years. Hence, teenagers are renowned for having like greater impulsive behaviors because the front of their brain isn't fully developed and they can't suppress the desire to act on an impulsive behavior. And when we drink, I think it's clear that we revert back to like the similar behaviors of an emotional teenager. The other night after the gym, Jack and I were walking back to the car and we have to walk past the local pub in our town. And there was some young adults out the front of the pub who were clearly drunk and they were just yelling out things like saying hey and ohh we've got the same water bottle as you and just random stuff that you would not normally say to a stranger. Walking past you on the street. And I said to Jack, oh, he must have already had enough alcohol to have a buildup, obviously the aldehyde in his body, because his prefrontal cortex has been compromised and he can no longer suppressive impulsive behaviors and just like. What? But I
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thought it was very cool because I saw it in like real life. Real. I saw it in action. I saw it all happening in front of my eyes. So that is what is happening when you first start to drink. Alcohol also suppresses the part of the brain that is responsible for your memory formation. Hence we often forget what happened on a night out. What I find it really interesting is that over the long term of drinking say. Every Friday or Saturday night you are having a few drinks. The neural circuits in your brain actually change. They physically change. Regular alcohol consumption causes them to physically change. Isn't that crazy? And they change in a way that makes the people who are regular drinkers more impulsive outside of the times in which they are actually consuming alcohol. And when they drink, their impulsive behavior tends to increase even further.
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Now that might sound scary, but never fear. This decline in brain function is reversible for some people. You can revert that brain circuitry back if it hasn't been too many years and depending on how frequently and how much alcohol you drink for people who have been drinking moderately by taking. So when I say moderately sorry, I should say like one to two drinks a night or 7 to 4. Drinks on the weekend is consider it moderate. Drinking by taking two to six months of alcohol can actually help you revert that brain circuitry back and improve your brain function again, so not all hope is lost. So what about the other sides of the moderate drinker? So if you are having one to two drinks occasionally, say once a month, that is not going to cause you significant damage so you don't have too much to worry about and you don't have to consider taking time off. Alcohol. Because you don't drink much alcohol anyway. However, for the more heavy drinkers, say you're drinking 3 to 4 drinks a night, there is no set time that has been yet shown to revert this damage. The best action that you can take is by coming completely sober or quitting alcohol to the best of your ability, and that will give you the best chance at beginning to reverse any of the damage that has already taken place in your brain. Before we leave the brain and head to the gut, I think that it's important to briefly touch on how alcohol affects our mood and our feelings of well-being. In my personal experience, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol or drinking alcohol frequently severely increased my feelings of anxiety. The toxins from alcohol cause the communication between your neurons for serotonin to become hyperactive, which sounds good right? Increasing
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our levels of serotonin, making us feel fantastic. So when you first start to drink, you become more confident, you become more happy and talkative, and then as you drink more alcohol, the alcohol starts to wear off and the serotonin levels start to drop off. And what do you do when this happens? You go and get another drink, of course, in attempt to restore that happy, relaxed feeling. However, most people, as they drink more and more, start to feel low. They have less motor control and less alertness. These effects can last up for four days after drinking alcohol. So once you drink alcohol and you feel good and great and then you keep drinking too, trying to hold on to that happy feeling the low effects like the anxiety or depression or. Just low mood can last up to four days if not longer. You might be familiar with that post diet anxiety. Every time that you go back and drink more to try and find that happy experience again, you are going to make your anxiety or depression the following day or week. Compound and ultimately be worse and possibly lead to something that is less controllable for you. I always believe that if someone was drinking that eating something was the one way for them to sober up. I would always come home from a night out and I would make myself two pieces of toast in an attempt to try and soak up, quote, UN soak up some of the alcohol in my stomach. It turns out that that does not work. However, if you eat something before drinking alcohol or during drinking, it will slow the absorption of alcohol into your bloodstream. So alcohol doesn't sit in your stomach
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like I used to believe. If you have an empty stomach, it is going to be absorbed into your bloodstream extremely quickly. Whereas if you have a meal, especially if that meal or food contains carbohydrates, fats, and protein, it's going to slow the absorption of alcohol into your bloodstream and ultimately slow with your feelings of being drunk or the effects that it has on your body and brain. It's the combination of all macro nutrients that slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream far more than just any one of those groups alone. So it's not just carbs. It's not just toast that is going to help slow the absorption of alcohol. You have to have a balance of all three macro nutrients for it to really slow the absorption of alcohol into your bloodstream. So the easiest way for you to do that is just ensuring that you have a well balanced meal before heading out for the night. Can help with all of these negative effects that I have just talked about. It's not going to mitigate them by any means, but if you can, slow. The absorption then that gives your liver and body more time to process the alcohol and less time for acetaldehyde to get into the cells in your body. So how does alcohol actually affect your gut? I'm sure that you have heard of the gut brain axis before. Your gut and your brain communicate through neurons and chemical signalling. So while you might think that your brain is responsible for telling you that you're hungry. Your gut is also responsible for telling the brain when we have enough food and most importantly, when we have like enough protein, sugar and fats. So any amount of alcohol produces a disruption in the gut microbiome. The trillions of little microbacteria that live inside your gut signal
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to your brain to increase serotonin, which is the happiness and mood. Hormone and dopamine which is involved in emotions and help to regulate your mood. Alcohol disrupts this whole communication as it kills the bacteria in your gut. Now I know this all sounds very dreary and negative so far, but a positive side of alcohol effect in the gut microbiota means that we can also implement things into our diet to begin to reverse the negative effects. Finally, some kind of solution to help you guys reverse any of the negative effects. Worried about and the most effective way for you to do this to support your gut if you have been drinking alcohol or you do drink alcohol is through adding fermented foods like kimchi, sour kraut, Kiefer, low sugar yogurts that have active bacteria into your diet. They are going to help reduce the inflammation caused by alcohol and support the healthy gut bacteria. Now, two to four servings a day has been shown in studies to improve gut function. However, if you don't normally eat these foods or have these foods in your diet at all, I recommend slowly introducing them into your diet just a few times a week to start with because. They can cause like bloating and some sort of stomach pain if you aren't used to eating fermented foods, but that is some great news, right? So alcohol kills our gut bacteria and that has a lot to do with our mood. If we don't have enough good gut bacteria then our gut is not going to be happy. Our brain is not going to be happy. We are not going to be happy. So for you to try and manage any of the damage that alcohol may have done to your gut, adding some fermented foods into your diet is a great place to start. What can you do about a hangover? So I've spoken a lot about how
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much alcohol negatively affects your brain, your gut, your health really. And I think that it's clear now that hangover is not just caused by alcohol. Affecting one area of your body now, I could not find any research that supported one thing that could cure hangovers. Unfortunately, I know that's might be bad news for some of you. However, there are a number of things that you can try together that may lessen the feeling of a hangover. The most beneficial thing that you can do is making sure you have a proper electrolyte balance for every glass of alcohol you drink. I would recommend drinking 2 glasses of water or even better. A glass of water with electrolytes in it. Now I'm going to mention element like letter LMNT as electrolyte that you guys look into. If that is something that you want to add into this whole scenario, if you don't want to be the one that takes electrolytes to a party. I completely understand that you could always have some electrolytes like when you get home before you go to sleep or when you wake up in the morning, but it is always. To be more beneficial and help you reduce your feelings of a hangover if you were having the electrolytes while you are drinking alcohol. The other method that I would recommend is taking a cold shower. So cold exposure as has like the longest list of health benefits, you can only help the negative effects of being hung over. Now I don't want you to take a cold shower when you're drunk, that could be dangerous. And I don't want you to jump in an ice bath if cold exposure is not something that you are used to, because that can also cause you. To have a heart attack, so like just a cold shower, it's as simple as that, especially if you aren't used to having
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a cold shower that is going to just get the blood pumping around your body and help support your body to get rid of acetaldehyde. Any acetaldehyde that is left now. One question that I did get, two questions actually that I did get about alcohol is should you exercise hungover? I know that it's pretty common for people to think, oh, I'll just go and sweat it out. If you learn anything from this episode, it does not work like that. I would recommend not working out after a big night out or after when you feel hungover. I don't recommend working out because exercise is a stressor on your body. A good stressor, but it's still a stressor and your body is already dealing with a known carcinogen. It is already working overtime to try and get rid of acetaldehyde, the poison in your body. So why would you go and put it on? More stress by going and trying your best to sweat it out. Instead, I would recommend maybe doing some yoga because that can help slow your heart rate and relax you, and possibly reduce any anxiety that you are experiencing from drinking alcohol the night before or something like going for a walk in nature because that also reduces anxiety and really calms your nervous system. So anything, any kind of movement or exercise that you can think of that is calming, I would recommend, but I do not recommend going and trying to sweat it out because you're only going to do more harm than good. The other question that I wanted to answer quickly on today's episode was what about cooking with alcohol? And I think that I have answered that in this episode already if you are only drinking one to two drinks
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once a month or every so often cooking. Alcohol isn't going to have any negative effects. As long as you aren't cooking every meal with alcohol or something crazy like that, your body can handle it pretty much. And when you do cook alcohol, it does break it down a little bit so it's not as potent as you say drinking like a straight glass of wine or tequila or whatever it is that you choose to drink. So I think that cooking with alcohol is fine as long as you don't aren't going over the top. And don't exercise when you are hungover. To sum up all of this information that I have given you today. As little as one to two drinks a night can have a negative effect on your brain and body, however. Those negative effects are reversible by taking two to six months off drinking alcohol. Some negative effects on emotion regulation and mood may take many months for you to revert when drinking alcohol occasionally. Ensure that you stay hydrated and aim to add fermented foods into your diet as often as you can. Now, I hope that I didn't scare any of you off. Well, Loki, I kind of hope that I scared you off alcohol because I want you to be healthy. But really, I just want you guys to understand what is going on when you drink alcohol, because I think that we just don't get told about the negative side effects. It's always about having a good time, and I'm not against having a good time, but I'm a big believer in having a good time without being drunk. Of course, if you have any questions about anything that I spoke about on today's podcast episode, I would love for you to send me a message. My the best place to reach me is probably on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at Mac_Insitu.
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I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I will see you in the next one.