Alcohol: how much is too much?

14 or more a week of drinking, doctors define as "excessive" consumption of alcohol. Drink less safe? Probably, no. Now, it appears, and "light" of alcohol consumption is also associated with the risk. So how much is too much? To answer this question, you need to know what is happening with alcohol that you consume.

When you drink on an empty stomach, the alcohol is absorbed quickly and completely, passing into the bloodstream. The presence of food, especially fat, reduces the rate at which alcohol enters the bloodstream. Maybe you think that the remit cocktail effect, adding carbonated liquid. In fact, you are doing the opposite: the mixing of alcohol with some fizzy drink increases the rate of its absorption.

Once in the blood, alcohol is immediately sent to the liver where it is destroyed 95% (the remaining 5% are excreted in breath, urine and sweat). This is a fairly high figure for the liver. The trouble is that it can not process more than 28.3 g of alcohol per hour (that's less than one can of beer, or one glass of wine). If you drink more than this amount, the excess remains in your body, adversely affecting virtually every organ. For example, alcohol dilates blood vessels anywhere, including the skin. (This is why chronic alcoholics characterized by distinctive red nose, his small capillaries expanded steadily for a long time.) When the dilated blood vessels in the brain, liver and other organs back to its original diameter after sleep, during which you do not drink, you experience the familiar morning feeling of a hangover.

Hangover - the smallest of the dangers that threaten you.

Here are some others.

If you drink, you are prone to heartburn, gastritis, nausea and stomach ulcers, as the mucosa of your stomach is irritated and eroded by excessive amounts of alcohol for many years.

Alcohol increases the risk of developing some forms of cancer, especially of the mouth, esophagus and stomach - especially if you're a smoker. Therefore sore in the mouth that does not go, difficulty swallowing or abdominal pain, aggravated by eating, should be encouraged to carefully search for these forms of cancer.

If a few days after drinking, which ended with vomiting, you have a fever, cough and start chest pain, it is probably not the flu, but the aspiration pneumonia - part of vomit into the lungs during vomiting attack.

The liver - an organ that is stronger than all suffer from severe long-term drinking. First, it increases due to deposition of fat in its cells - a condition known as "fatty liver." This does not necessarily give any symptoms, but when viewed from the doctor can detect an increase in liver size. If at this moment you stop drinking, the nature of an insult, and your liver will return to normal.

However, if you continue to drink, you move on to the next phase - alcoholic hepatitis, symptoms are jaundice, nausea, discomfort in the right upper abdomen and may have a slight fever, very similar to the one that happens in the ordinary infectious hepatitis. Mortality among alcoholics, sick alcoholic hepatitis, is from 10 to 30%.

The final, irreversible and often fatal stage of alcoholic liver disease is cirrhosis. In pathological alcoholics grows connective tissue gradually replaces normal liver cells. Cirrhosis violates numerous vital functions of the liver: it is no longer able to release sugar coming at the right time, which leads to a sharp decrease in blood sugar - hypoglycemia, especially in case of violation meal schedule; it does not produce the proteins needed for blood clotting, and you are bleeding, and you easily bruises; it does not neutralize many drugs that you need, and they become intolerable for you; it does not produce the necessary antibodies in sufficient quantities, and you become susceptible to all infections. Finally, a terrible moment for the patient with advanced liver cirrhosis are bleeding from veins of the esophagus and gastric, hepatic coma. According to statistics, drunken women are more likely to suffer liver damage, even if they consume smaller amounts of alcohol than men, and the mortality rate among them is higher when the liver is damaged. But every alcoholic can be attributed to all the aforesaid.

Long-term heavy drinking also destroys brain cells, and chronic alcoholics may be at risk of dementia. In fact, alcohol is in second place after Alzheimer's disease in the list of causes of mental disorders in adults. If your friend, many years alcohol abuse, worsening memory for recent events happen disorientation, hallucinations, emotional disorders, double vision and muscle weakness, the cause may be drinking, but not Alzheimer's disease. The main difference between the alcoholic dementia and Alzheimer's disease is in the first case to abstain from alcohol can prevent further deterioration and sometimes even leads to an improvement, whereas in Alzheimer's disease status of the patient is steadily deteriorating.

Although one or two glasses of wine relieve tension, stimulate the appetite and cause a feeling of satisfaction with life, for most people, alcohol - a depressant. Even with the "moderation" it can affect mood and lower sexual potency in men. In men who drink heavily at 40% below the level of testosterone, the male hormone that determines sexual desire.

Alcohol and the heart beats. Among drinkers more cases of heart attack, probably due to the fact that testosterone deficiency promotes the formation of clots in the coronary arteries. Alcohol can also poison and weaken the heart muscle. If you drink heavily and felt that you become out of breath and you can sleep only in a semi-sitting position, in addition, you will notice that your feet are swollen, - alcohol is his blows sent a knockout muscle fibers of the heart. These lesions are more enhanced deficit of power when drinkers prefer to drink the food, while alcoholic beverages, although rich in calories, negligible nutritional value.

Even small amounts of alcohol can damage the heart. Some drinks can cause it to beat rapidly or irregularly causing palpitations, dizziness, chest pain and sometimes loss of consciousness. As it often happens on the weekend, this condition is known as "holiday heart". You are particularly vulnerable if before this you were cardiac arrhythmia.

However, the affected heart with alcohol can be cured. There have been cases when patients literally on the verge of death due to heart failure is running with appropriate treatment, diet and abstinence from alcohol exempt from most of the symptoms.

And again, women who drink little - only three or four cocktails per week - may be more susceptible to breast cancer. If this observation is confirmed, then drop to drink. However, if your family history of breast cancer, you should at least reduce their dose of alcohol.

Pregnant women who consume alcohol, handicapped children can be born. The most serious defect is fetal alcohol syndrome that affects the mother-alcoholic; it leads to the child's mental retardation, as well as to various physical abnormalities. But even drinking from case to case can be dangerous for the baby, especially during the first three months of pregnancy. Children drinking mothers tend to be born with a reduced weight; they have a small head; their limbs, fingers and face can be deformed, possible heart disease. Sometimes a child seems perfectly normal at birth, and only in adolescence any obvious problems with learning and behavior problems.

If alcohol relieves stress you may have after a hard day, it should reduce your blood pressure. Correctly? No! Alcohol increases your blood pressure. And it's dangerous if you already have high blood pressure. Alcohol has a detrimental effect on the brain. Drunkards are more susceptible to hemorrhagic stroke (rupture of blood vessels in the brain). Nerves can also be damaged by alcohol (alcoholic neuropathy), arising from the weakness and sharp, stabbing, shooting pains in the extremities.

A few years ago there was a theory that a small dose of alcohol per day raises high-density cholesterol ( "positive" his faction, which helps to protect the heart from disease). Unfortunately, this theory was later questioned by some cardiologists, but persistent wine lovers like myself.

What is the conclusion? Should we go back to the "dry law"? Do we need to completely stop drinking, or we can still enjoy a glass at dinner? If you trust the statistics, probably best to quit.

But, speaking realistically, we recommend abstinence in the following situations.

• Cases of alcoholism in the family.
• Pregnancy.
• Any liver disease.
• Active ulcer.
• Irregular heartbeat or heart failure.
• Hypertension that is poorly controlled.
• Cases of breast cancer in the "medical" family history.
• Heavy smoking. The combination of tobacco and alcohol in particular provokes some types of cancer.
• Older people who take drugs, especially tranquilizers.

Almost everyone else can continue to enjoy a few sips of ginger "on the occasion" and at the same time, remember to be careful.