Three reasons you need to cut back on alcohol
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A night out for drinks with friends once or twice a week, a weekend of binge drinking, or just one drink a night: what type of damage are you really doing to your body? Alcohol can result in many problems including:
Tissue damage and cancer risk
The end products of alcohol metabolism can interact with other components in your body and create reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are found at normal levels in the body but ROS at high levels in the body can be detrimental. High levels of ROS in the body are associated with cancer, heart disease, inflammation, diabetes and aging among other problems.
Weight gain
Alcohol contains about seven calories per gram, which is less than a gram of fat contains, but more than a gram of protein or carbohydrate, so it is not extremely hard to compensate for the calories in alcohol to avoid weight gain, but it's not necessarily the calories alone in the alcohol that cause weight gain.
Alcohol dependency
A hangover are alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Your body and your brain develop dependency on alcohol--after all it is used as a preferred fuel when in the body. Alcohol metabolism end products interact and combine with neurotransmitters in the brain such as dopamine and serotonin, leading to a seemingly therapeutic effect on the nervous system. This therapeutic effect, along with your body's accommodation to alcohol as fuel, is thought to ultimately result in alcohol dependency.
A night out for drinks with friends once or twice a week, a weekend of binge drinking, or just one drink a night: what type of damage are you really doing to your body? Alcohol can result in many problems including:
Tissue damage and cancer risk
The end products of alcohol metabolism can interact with other components in your body and create reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS are found at normal levels in the body but ROS at high levels in the body can be detrimental. High levels of ROS in the body are associated with cancer, heart disease, inflammation, diabetes and aging among other problems.
Weight gain
Alcohol contains about seven calories per gram, which is less than a gram of fat contains, but more than a gram of protein or carbohydrate, so it is not extremely hard to compensate for the calories in alcohol to avoid weight gain, but it's not necessarily the calories alone in the alcohol that cause weight gain.
Alcohol dependency
A hangover are alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Your body and your brain develop dependency on alcohol--after all it is used as a preferred fuel when in the body. Alcohol metabolism end products interact and combine with neurotransmitters in the brain such as dopamine and serotonin, leading to a seemingly therapeutic effect on the nervous system. This therapeutic effect, along with your body's accommodation to alcohol as fuel, is thought to ultimately result in alcohol dependency.
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