Going out for drinks on a night out with friends may not have a greater impact on health, but excessive alcohol consumption is considered a risk factor for the development of multiple conditions, as warned by the World Health Organization.
The entity warns that alcoholism causes the death of millions of people a yearso being moderate when drinking alcoholic beverages is a responsibility with one’s own life, as it has been associated with the development of liver diseases, heart conditions and cancer.
Among the parts of the body that suffer the consequences of the damage caused by alcohol is the liver, one of the five vital organs of the human being, responsible for eliminating toxins and waste accumulated in the body, as well as regulating chemical substances and nutrients.
Why does it affect the liver?
When ingested, like any other food, alcohol must be processed by the body, so it makes its way through the digestive system. Nevertheless, explain in an article from the German Clinic, a part of the drinks are not processed in the stomach and pass in that state to the small intestine.
That is the first step on its way to the liver, which receives it through the flow of blood. However, the liver does not have the same amount of enzymes to process alcohol as the stomach, so the substance can end up becoming a harmful waste for the body, in turn damaging the liver.
The Catalan Association of Liver Patients lists some of the conditions that derive from alcohol toxicity in the liver, all of them grouped under the term of alcoholic liver disease. The entity indicates that three serious consequences of the consumption of alcoholic beverages for the state of the vital organ are liver cirrhosis, liver cancer and fatty liver.
Delay in alcohol processing is also a risk
Food is the source of nutrients for the body, but in order to take advantage of it before they have to make the proper digestive transit, whose organs are responsible for extracting nutrients and eliminating unusable waste from the body.
In that sense, the danger of alcohol lies in its complexity to be processed, so the substances pass in that state from the stomach to the liver. Although the liver fulfills the function of eliminating toxins from the body, it is overcome by alcohol, while it favors the accumulation of fat and takes too long to process.
“The elimination process (depending on the alcohol consumed) might be completed even 19 hours later,” they add from the Healthy Lifestyles guide of the Spanish Ministry of Health.
To get an idea of how long it can take for the liver to convert alcohol into a compound that is harmless to the body, The entity shares a table detailing how many hours it takes to metabolize a single glass of wine or a third of a beer in the body. They limit that there is a difference between men and women in terms of their enzymatic capacity.
It may also be of interest…
Here are some of the data extracted by the Ministry of Health of the European country:
- 1/3 of beer, one of the most common drinks in family celebrations, rumbas and other social events, can be delayed up to one hour and 45 minutes to process in men and up to two hours and 50 minutes in women.
- A glass of wine takes less time, but it is still considerable: regarding an hour and a half for men and more than two hours for women.
- And shot of other liquors can take an hour and five minutes in the liver of men and half an hour more in women.
- With regard to brandy, the health entity indicates that men process it in an hour and 50 minutes; on the other hand, women occupy two hours and 15 minutes.
