Here is a detailed video explaining what alcohol does to your body. It features an interview with Kevin Strang, Faculty Associate in Physiology.
It is a 23 minute video which will show you in some detail about what alcohol is and that it is a drug. People take alcohol for a reason - there are effects we are seeking when we take them.
This is a great powerful video showing in great graphical detail plus great music and visuals exactly what alcohol does to you - and in particular your brain and liver.
It is almost like looking inside your body and seeing what is happening when you are drinking alcohol. How does your body work to deal with this?
This page is from the Info Scotland web-site and shows you the short term effects of alcohol on your body. http://tinyurl.com/yfbwezw
Alcohol affects the brain like an anaesthetic. In fact, one of the very first anaesthetics ever used in medicine – ether – is based on alcohol.
As with anaesthetics, the more alcohol take the more of our brain it shuts down. The abilities we acquire last in life, like controlling our behaviour, are the first to be lost. The abilities we acquire first, like being able to breathe, are the last to go.
After one or two drinks (1-3 units), we’re more talkative and our heart rate speeds up a little, giving us an ‘up’ feeling. This is the effect that people refer to when they say alcohol makes them feel more sociable. The ‘warm feeling’, or flushes, is caused by alcohol in the blood making small blood vessels in the skin expand, allowing more blood to flow closer to the surface and lowering blood pressure at the same time.
After a couple more drinks (4-6 units) we feel light headed and our co-ordination and reaction times are impaired. Our ability to make decisions is also slowed down. All of these effects are cased by alcohol acting on nerve cells all around the body and making them work more slowly. Driving will be illegal (and dangerous) and operating machinery a bad idea.
Another few drinks (7-9 units) and most people will show definite outward signs of alcohol’s effects. Reaction times are much slower, vision becomes blurry and speech is slurred. Drinking more than eight units at a time seriously overloads the liver. If we take care of ourselves in the days to come, it should repair itself but for tomorrow a hangover is pretty much guaranteed.
Drinking more than 10 units has most people staggering about the place. Accidents are commonplace – as are fights caused by bumping into people who’re easily upset by such things. This amount of alcohol will be affecting cells all over the body. In an effort to rid itself of the poison, the body tries to pass the alcohol out mixed with water in our urine. This is why alcohol makes us go to the loo a lot and is the cause of the dehydration that gives us morning-after headaches. Alcohol also attacks the gut, causing stomach upsets, heartburn, sickness and diarrhoea.
Drinking more than 30 units (that’s about twelve pints of strong lager) is enough to knock most people out. From there, it’s a short step to heart failure and breathing slowing to a stop. Even when people are already unconscious, alcohol in the stomach can continue to be absorbed and can reach lethal levels. People can also be sick and suffocate on their vomit.
For these reasons, it’s crucial never to leave very drunk people on their own.
Visit http://tinyurl.com/yfbwezw for more information on what you can do to stop drinking too much alcohol.
In this post, I want to refer you to a website created by a beer company. Now this might seem strange as you would think they would want you to drink as much as possible.
However, the company SAB Miller has created a website with information on the effects of alcohol on your body and also how to drink moderately.
There is some interesting information here with some diagrams of what happens when you actually have a drink. How does your body react and what affect does it have on various parts of your body? Find out here:
http://www.talkingalcohol.com/index.asp?pageid=68
Click on the arrow where it says see what happens to be given a tour through the body when you have a drink.
There are also some pdfs on alcohol and its effect on your heart, liver etc so it is worth checking it out for more information.
In the meantime, I have been working on the bonus for the 2010 Alcohol course on one of the main causes of alcohol problems - boredom. I have interviewed an academic professor who has investigated what is called habitual boredom where people seem to have lost their purpose or drive in life. One of the ways of dealing with the pain and numbness this causes is with alcohol. More on this to come but something for you to consider about why you might be drinking too much.
This is one of the most worrying aspects of the long-term effects of alcohol. Tonight, I have just completed the bonus e-book on Brain Fitness and Alcohol which will be available soon with the 2010 Alcohol course. Some of the things I learnt were worrying to say the least. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel because the scientist I spoke to in order to create the section detailed the specific things heavy drinkers can do to develop their ‘brain fitness’ in the long-term. I will let you know when it is available.
In the meantime though, here is a YouTube question where a Doctor from the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory University is asked whether drinking alcohol can cause brain damage. Find out what he has to say:
Here is a good short video showing you exactly what happens when you take a sip of alcohol. What does your body do to process the alcohol you drink? It may surprise you that your body treats alcohol as a poison. Please watch this 1 minute video to find out more:
I would like to point you to the UK site Drinkaware.co.uk which has an excellent page on the effects of alcohol on you. For each particular effect they have a fact sheet which you can either read online or download.
In this blog post, we will focus on alcohol and heart disease.
http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/factsheets/alcohol-and-heart-disease
Here is some of the information about the specific effects of drinking too much alcohol on your heart. The page is interesting because it also focuses on the frequently quoted articles in the media about glasses of red wine being good for your heart.
Drinking too much has the following effects on the heart:
• ‘Holiday heart’ syndrome. Binge drinking or a period of heavy alcohol consumption can cause a sudden, irregular rhythm of the heart in apparently healthy people. This results in shortness of breath, changes in blood pressure and an increase in the risk of a heart attack and even sudden death.
• An increased risk of thrombosis (blood clotting). Alcohol can affect levels of a substance in the blood called homocysteine. High homocysteine levels increase the risk of blood vessel blockages.
• Increased risk of high blood pressure (hypertension). According to the Department of Health, men who regularly consume more than eight alcohol units a day are four times more likely to develop high blood pressure. Women who regularly consume more than six alcohol units a day double their risk of developing high blood pressure. People who’ve had a heart attack may be at greater risk of developing high blood pressure or further damage to the heart muscle as a result of drinking alcohol.
• Regular heavy drinking may lead to enlargement of the heart. This is a sign that the heart is unable to pump effectively. This condition is known as heart failure, and requires treatment consisting of drugs, a pacemaker or even a heart transplant. The condition is not curable.
Please visit this page for more general effects of alcohol on you.
http://www.drinkaware.co.uk/facts/effects-of-alcohol-2
Being better informed will help you with your decision to cut down or quit drinking overall.
A 3 minute video from BUPA showing the long-term effects of alcohol on you:
This is a good video because it shows using animations what alcohol does to the various organs in your body with continued drinking. It also discusses the safe number of units to drink with clear visuals of how much a unit actually is.
Another video showing you exactly what alcohol is doing to your body. I love this presenter!
This short YouTube video shows you exactly what the physical effects of you drinking too much alcohol are.
It takes a step by step approach to show you the short term and long-term physical effects of drinking on your body and mind using some graphics.
If you want more, please enter your name and e-mail address in the form on the right and I will send you a 1 page summary guide to these effects alcohol is having on you.
