Dangerous effects of alcohol and scary diseases
13/11/2023
Alcohol is a popular drink in parties with friends or customers, but alcohol abuse can lead to many unpredictable harms. Find out immediately about some scary diseases related to alcohol through the following article!
1. Affects the liver
The liver is a very important human organ. Just like the heart and kidneys, we can lack a spleen or a stomach, but we cannot lack a liver or heart or kidneys.
First of all, drinking too much alcohol can cause fatty liver. People who drink alcohol regularly often have fatty liver, which in turn affects liver function.
A proportion of people who drink alcohol develop fibrotic scars in the liver, which then leads to cirrhosis, a type of progressive, irreversible liver damage that eventually leads to complete loss of liver function. Cirrhosis patients also suffer from other life-threatening complications such as vomiting blood and ascitic fluid infection.
One-third of people have genetic factors that lead to cirrhosis. The exact mechanism of this disease is not yet understood.
Alcohol affects every organ in the body, of course it also changes the brain, and this change is not like getting drunk and then returning to normal, it is irreversible. In addition, alcohol also affects nerve transmission, in a way that makes the person increasingly anxious, depressed, stressed, and more hot-tempered and irritable.
Alcohol reduces the brain's ability to judge and think
3. Risk of infertility and miscarriage
Alcohol can negatively affect male reproductive function, causing temporary erectile dysfunction. Drinking a lot of alcohol over a long period of time reduces Testosterone levels, leading to decreased sexual ability, causing toxicity to the testicles, thereby damaging sperm, reducing sperm quantity and quality, thus affecting fertility. reproductive capacity.
Drinking alcohol also reduces female fertility by causing menstrual disorders and even stopping ovulation. Women who drink a lot of alcohol during pregnancy are also at increased risk of miscarriage.
4. Cardiovascular
Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death today.
Alcohol is a poison that directly affects the heart muscle. Therefore, when drinking alcohol, heart muscle cells die, forming fibrous tissue, reducing the ability of the heart to contract. Over time, the heart becomes weak and unable to pump blood to the body.
Worse, heart failure may occur, presenting with shortness of breath, fatigue, arrhythmia, and leg swelling. The heart has the ability to restore and heal itself well, but if you drink alcohol regularly, it will seriously damage the heart.
Drinking alcohol also affects sleep, thus increasing blood pressure. People who drink a lot of alcohol also often have an unhealthy lifestyle, so they are more susceptible to cardiovascular disease.
Drinking too much alcohol causes serious harm to the heart
5. Enhances skin aging
Alcoholic beverages can also affect the skin, accelerating the skin aging process. Alcohol also has a diuretic effect, leading to dehydration in the body, as well as the skin. This will have immediate and lasting effects on the skin and hair.
Dehydration causes dry skin, wrinkles, and dry, brittle hair. At the same time, drinking too much alcohol reduces iron in the body, causing pale skin, lack of vitality, and hair falling out more easily.
Alcohol drastically reduces the body's vitamin C and vitamin A levels, so the antioxidant capacity against environmental aging agents such as sunlight and pollutants is also weaker, and the skin is quickly attacked. Due to many factors, it becomes dry and ugly.
Drinking a lot of alcoholic beverages also makes the skin thinner, and when you look closely you can see the blood vessels under the skin.
6. Cancer
There have been reports of increased incidence of some types of cancer such as nasopharynx, esophagus, liver, intestine and breast cancer in people who drink a lot of alcohol. Drinking just one bottle of wine a week increases the risk of breast cancer by 10% compared to the average person.
When entering the body, alcoholic beverages such as wine and beer are metabolized through the liver and create Acetaldehyde, which damages the DNA of cells, thereby increasing the risk of cancer, especially liver cancer.
Alcohol can also combine with other cancer-causing agents, such as toxins in cigarettes, causing the risk of cancer to increase many times over.
Stop drinking alcohol to reduce the risk of cancer
7. Increased risk of kidney disease
Regularly drinking a lot of alcohol increases the risk of kidney disease by up to 50%. The kidneys filter and remove toxins from the blood stream, and alcohol reduces the kidneys' ability to perform this function.
Just one drink too much can cause acute kidney failure, a condition in which kidney function suddenly loses, due to the amount of alcohol in the blood increasing too quickly. Kidney function can recover, but it can also leave permanent damage.
8. Pancreatitis
When drinking alcohol, alcohol disrupts the production of digestive enzymes. The enzymes are activated and function while still in the pancreas, leading to pancreatitis.
Symptoms of pancreatitis include abdominal pain, which can be severe, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. People who drink a lot of alcohol can develop acute pancreatitis immediately after drinking alcohol, or chronic pancreatitis because the pancreas is slowly destroyed, leading to diabetes and eventually death.
9. Osteoporosis, bone fractures
Drinking alcohol regularly has the risk of causing osteoporosis, making bones thinner, weaker and more fragile, and also takes longer to heal if broken.
In the body, bone destruction and bone formation always occur, and there is a balance between these two processes. Alcohol directly affects the bone regeneration process, inhibits regeneration, the bone destruction process is stronger than bone formation. Therefore, alcohol is also one of the causes of bone fractures.
In addition, people who often drink alcohol often have deviations in their diet such as drinking a lot but eating less, or eating a lot of unhealthy foods, increasing the risk of weak bones and fractures.
Alcohol increases the risk of bone fractures
10. Gout
Gout is a metabolic disorder where uric acid accumulates in the muscles: big toes, ankles, and knees, affecting movement.
Excessive alcohol abuse gradually damages the body's organs, especially the liver and kidneys, making the body unable to eliminate toxins and toxic substances, leading to a high risk of gout. than.
Simply reducing the amount of alcohol you consume every day will help your body immediately reduce the risk of dangerous diseases in the liver, kidneys, heart and most other organs in the body. Refuse alcohol before it's too late, to have a safe and healthy life.
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