What Alcohol Does To Your Body, Brain & Health
1. Chronic alcohol intake, even at low to moderate levels (1-2 drinks per day or 7-14 per week), can disrupt the brain.
2. When people drink, the prefrontal cortex and top-down inhibition are diminished and impulsive behavior increases – this is true in the short term while drinking, and rewires circuitry outside of drinking events in chronic drinkers (even those who drink 1-2 nights per week, long term).
3. Damaging effects to the prefrontal cortex and rewiring of neural circuitry are reversible with 2-6 months of abstinence for most social/casual drinkers; chronic users will partially recover but likely feel long-lasting effects.
4. When people drink there is a shutdown of the prefrontal cortex and circuits that control memory, then there’s a fork in the road: group 1 – people who feel sedated after a few drinks; group 2 – people who do not feel sedated after a few drinks (predisposition to alcoholism).
5. People who start drinking at a younger age (13-15) are more likely to develop dependence, regardless of the history of alcoholism in their family; people who delay drinking to early 20s are less likely to develop dependence even if there’s a family history.
6. People who drink consistently (even in small amounts i.e., 1 per night) experience increases in cortisol release from adrenal glands when not drinking so feel more stress and more anxiety when not drinking.
7. With increased alcohol tolerance, you get less and less of the feel good blip and more and more of the pain signaling (so behaviorally you drink more to try to activate those dopamine and serotonin molecules again).
8. The risk of breast cancer increases among women who drink – for every 10 grams of alcohol consumed per day, there’s a 4-13% increase in the risk of cancer (alcohol increases tumor growth & suppresses molecules that inhibit tumor growth).
9. Regular consumption of alcohol increases estrogen levels of males and females through aromatisation.