People have a different attitude to alcohol. No one can last an evening without drinking beer, and some have never touched alcohol in their lives. Even a person without a diploma knows that alcohol is harmful to the body every day, but what about the best dose of alcohol? How much can you drink to minimize the health effects of alcohol? This question is relevant to many. Let's learn.
Don't drink as much alcohol
I'll tell you right away - there's no consensus on this. Some scientists say that alcohol, even in small amounts, has a devastating effect on the body. Others believe that even small doses of alcohol are beneficial. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that a dangerous dose of alcohol be 60 ml of ethanol for men and 50 ml for women. However, since very few people consume ethanol in its pure form (hopefully), a completely dangerous dose of alcohol looks like this in terms of the most familiar drinks:
- 180 g of vodka for men and 150 g for women
- 1, 5 l. beer
- 0, 5 l. wine
Absolutely dangerous dose of alcohol- the average lethal amount of alcohol consumed.
But don't think that if you drink less than these values, nothing will happen to your body. Even if you consume the equivalent of 30 ml of ethanol (90 g of vodka, 800 ml of beer or a large glass of wine) per day, you can seriously damage your health.
What happens if you drink alcohol every day?
Scientists have been studying this issue for a long time. Recent evidence suggests that alcohol reduces the risk of atherosclerosis. In part, it helps prevent blockage of blood vessels with cholesterol plaques. Why is cholesterol dangerous? Causes circulatory problems. Blood vessels stop circulating normally because they are full of cholesterol and a person can even die. Alcohol "washes" the arteries and prevents cholesterol stagnation.
Does this mean you can drink alcohol every day? No. In this case, we are talking about extremely low doses of alcohol. According to the same WHO recommendations, experts recommend abstaining from alcohol at least two days a week. Of course, the more you drink, the better.
The best dose of alcohol that is not very harmful to health and can even bring some benefitsis 150 ml of dry red wine.
But that doesn't mean you have to drink a small glass of wine every day, even though there are many stories on the Internet about how some grandparents drank a glass every day and lived to be 90 years old. Everything here is individual and many factors must be taken into account - from chronic diseases to hereditary predispositions. Alcohol is completely contraindicated for minors and pregnant women.
If you drink alcohol every day, the body will not be able to get rid of it and a disease such as alcoholism will begin. It consists of 3 stages and we will cover them in this article. But first let's understand - how does alcohol affect a person in general?
How alcohol works
What is alcohol in a scientific sense? It is an ethyl alcohol made by fermenting sugar, yeast and starch. And all this "nuclear" mixture has an incredible feature: it goes through all the stages of digestion incredibly quickly. That is, when digesting lunch soup (about 30 minutes) or chicken (up to 2 hours), alcohol quickly reaches its goal - the human circulatory system, sometimes bypassing the liver if you drink in large quantities. It just can't absorb that much alcohol.
Alcohol begins to do bad things in the circulatory system: it damages red blood cells (the small bodies that make up blood), so they stick together to form blood clots. Blood clots, in turn, block the flow of blood in the small blood vessels, causing the blood vessels in the brain to become blocked. Thus, a feeling of intoxication resembles a lack of oxygen in the brain.
Therefore, if you do not drink large amounts of alcohol, the brain will always be in this state. This will lead to the degradation of many mental and physical functions - a condition comparable to drinking too much alcohol at once. A person cannot stand up normally and does not report on his actions.
Scientists have already shown that alcohol damages DNA and increases the risk of cancer.
Stages of alcoholism
Alcohol consumption leads to three stages of alcoholism.
- In the first stage of alcohol dependence, a person gradually loses control over the amount of alcohol, which leads to a pathological craving for alcohol.
- In the second stage, a person develops "immunity" to alcohol, or rather, it seems to him. Indeed, at this stage, if a person consumes more than 1 liter of alcohol, it seems that the body will begin to absorb alcohol more easily. In fact, it hides the development of serious diseases - hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, esophageal cancer and gastric cancer.
- Alcoholism of the third stage is characterized by complete degradation of the individual on a physical and mental level. A person can no longer drink alcohol and in most cases dies.
Scientists believe that alcoholism is influenced by a hereditary tendency caused by low production of enzymes that metabolize alcohol. But in fact, the amount of alcohol consumed affects it. You do not need to drink only if you realize that you have lost control and an unpleasant condition of the body.
Why does hanging happen?
This question is asked the next morning after a tense party (usually with the words "well, I don't drink anymore"). In fact, the explanation is very simple: alcohol enters the body's bloodstream in a terrible way, but leaves it very slowly. And the human body cannot fully recover from a stormy night until the substance is completely destroyed and digested. This happens in a hangover.
Undoubtedly, many people have googled how to avoid hanging before starting to celebrate another alcoholic event. But the answer can be summed up in one sentence: do not drink too much, and then the alcohol will take time to leave the body without touching the pillow on your head.
How to drink alcohol?
Researchers distinguish between the so-called "northern" drinking model and the "southern". First, there are Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Baltic countries, which drink a lot of alcohol, and in shocking doses and not always. The "southern" model is typical of Spain, Italy, Greece, where they drink more often than other countries, but less and less strong alcohol: for example, a glass of dry wine for dinner. No one drinks 100 grams of vodka every day.
Although scientists say that daily alcohol consumption is harmful to health, they agree that the southern model is safer for health. Therefore, do not overuse.