Why do some people’s faces turn red when they drink alcohol? Will you get sick if you drink too much?

Facial skin flushing is caused by temporary subcutaneous blood vessel dilation. After drinking alcohol, the concentration of ethanol in the blood increases rapidly, which can cause facial skin blood vessels to dilate, blush, and even whole body skin flushing, sometimes accompanied by The mechanism of urticaria and itching is not yet fully understood. Some scholars believe that it is an allergic reaction of facial blood vessels. A small number of patients with alcohol-related flushing feel burning on the face within 5 to 10 minutes of ethanol absorption, and at the same time, facial or systemic skin flushing, pulsating headache, difficulty breathing, nausea, vomiting, sweating, thirst, chest pain, hypotension, Symptoms such as syncope, blurred vision, and confusion are considered to be drunk at this time. Medically, it is called "acetaldehyde syndrome". This is due to the significant increase in blood acetaldehyde levels caused by the oxidative metabolism of ethanol (alcohol dehydrogenase). ). But we can't forget that there is another enzyme, aldehyde dehydrogenase (aldehyde dehydrogenase). People who blush after drinking only have the former enzyme but not the latter enzyme, so acetaldehyde accumulates rapidly in the body and cannot be metabolized for a long time, so the face becomes red for a long time. However, everyone has experience that the redness will gradually disappear after 1-2 hours. This is due to the P450 in the liver slowly converting acetaldehyde into acetic acid, which then enters the TCA cycle and is metabolized. Of course, the same goes for body redness! one. Drinking a lot of alcohol will cause the following disadvantages

1. Death: Alcohol will inhibit the respiratory center of the brain and cause breathing to stop. In addition, a drop in blood sugar may also be a fatal factor.

2. Malabsorption syndrome causes various vitamin deficiencies and indirectly leads to various nervous system injuries.

Two. Effects of long-term heavy drinking

1. Liver damage: Fat accumulation in the liver causes fatty liver.

2. Gastric ulcer: It can cause gastric bleeding and be life-threatening.

3. Nervous system damage: such as peripheral neuropathy.

4. Cerebral cortical atrophy: There are reports that some chronic alcoholics have cerebral cortical atrophy, and some patients also show signs of mental decline.

5. Alcoholic Fetal Syndrome: Alcohol is metabolized and excreted slowly in the fetus, causing various harms to the developing fetus, including fetal malformations, fetal death, growth retardation and behavioral defects. wait.

Three. The impact of alcoholism on family life

1. Easily agitated, losing temper, poor judgment control, prone to conflicts with others, sensitive to external stimuli, and high crime rate.

2. Spouses and children often become the targets of violent acts and attacks.

3. Being in a trance affects work efficiency.

4. Alienation from relatives and friends causes alcoholics to bear greater psychological frustration and pressure, leading to a vicious cycle of self-destruction and self-abandonment.

Four. Alcohol has different effects on different people. Most people think of alcohol as a stimulant. However, from a medical perspective, alcohol is a depressant: it slows down your reaction time and confuses your ability to judge movement and distance. Even walking and talking can become a problem when you drink too much. [1]

Five. It is important to understand that alcohol is a drug and addictive. The more you drink, the more you want to drink more, and the more you need to drink to get the instant pleasure and happiness that comes from drinking. However, it's a vicious cycle; because after drinking, you have a hangover, a horrible headache. The main cause is dehydration: alcohol causes water to leave your body's cells and enter your bloodstream and urine. [1]

Not only that, but over a few years, alcohol can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, and other consequences like brain damage, stomach disease, vitamin deficiencies, high blood pressure, and depression. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is very dangerous. Even small amounts of alcohol in the mother's blood may cause mental retardation or other birth defects in the baby.

Six. The social costs of alcoholism are staggering. Alcohol costs millions of working days, is directly related to many industrial accidents, and is often a factor in suicide. The victims of alcohol are often not the drinkers themselves, but other innocent people.

For example, driving while drinking shows a disregard for human life, not just for the driver and his passengers, but also for the lives of innocent people.

There are different opinions on whether alcohol is beneficial or harmful to the cardiovascular system. Some alcoholics drink more and more on the grounds that alcohol can pass through the bloodstream, and their addiction becomes more and more serious. As everyone knows, there is a problem of quality and quantity in the benefits of alcohol to the cardiovascular system. That is, low-alcohol alcohol is beneficial to the prevention of cardiovascular diseases when consumed in small amounts, while strong alcohol and heavy drinking are harmful to health but not beneficial.

Some experts believe that people who drink a small amount of alcohol have lower rates of coronary heart disease and mortality than those who do not drink. This is because drinking a small amount of alcohol can increase HDL-C (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) in the blood and inhibit Related to platelet aggregation. Among many alcoholic beverages, red wine is more effective in preventing cardiovascular disease than white wine and other alcoholic beverages. As for the amount of alcohol consumed, it is better not to exceed 50 ml per day.

The cardiac systolic function of healthy people can be reduced after drinking alcohol, and this change is reversible; in addition, drinking alcohol can increase the heart rate and dilate peripheral blood vessels, which is detrimental to some patients with cardiovascular disease.

Some healthy people may develop supraventricular or ventricular arrhythmia after drinking a large amount of alcohol. Since it often occurs after drinking a large amount of alcohol on holidays, this syndrome is called "holiday heart disease". It is caused by the effects of alcohol and sympathetic nerve excitement, and can gradually return to normal after stopping drinking.

Long-term heavy drinking can lead to heart failure, which is manifested as ventricular enlargement and low left ventricular systolic function. The appearance and regression of the disease are related to drinking. When drinking is stopped, the heart failure can be improved or at least not eliminated. The heart failure worsens further, and the heart failure relapses after drinking again. If this happens repeatedly, it will cause irreversible damage to the myocardium. Even after stopping drinking, the heart function will continue to deteriorate, causing "excessive cardiomyopathy".

In addition, the incidence of atrial fibrillation in alcoholics is also very high. If the atrial fibrillation caused by poisoning can be stopped early, the disease can be reversed or stabilized. Alcohol is a pure caloric food. Long-term heavy drinking can increase weight, affect the body's sugar metabolism and increase triglyceride production. Obesity and hyperlipidemia are both risk factors for coronary heart disease. Therefore, long-term heavy drinking It can increase the prevalence of coronary heart disease, and the mortality rate from coronary heart disease in heavy drinkers also increases.

It is not difficult to see that drinking a small amount of low-alcohol alcohol has positive significance in preventing cardiovascular disease; long-term drinking of large amounts of strong alcohol is extremely harmful to health. In view of the harm of drinking to many systems such as digestion, central nervous system, and reproduction, as well as a series of traffic, social and other problems that may be caused by drinking, relevant experts recommend not recommending moderate drinking as one of the measures to prevent cardiovascular disease.

We advise you not to be greedy for what you drink. Middle-aged people who already have drinking habits should limit and reduce the amount of alcohol they drink. It is better to drink low-alcohol alcohol during holidays or when gathering with relatives and friends. Patients with existing cardiovascular diseases must Stop drinking, especially for children and teenagers.

In addition to the immediate effects caused by excessive drinking at one time (commonly known as drunkenness), repeated heavy drinking can cause a variety of serious long-term diseases. We consider the effects of drinking on various human organs. A summary of the impacts is appended below.

Brain

A small amount of alcohol can make people consciously excited, alert, and focused. However, actual results show that this is not the case. A small amount of alcohol has a sedative effect, and a large amount of alcohol can have a negative impact on the brain. Memory, attention, judgment, municipal functioning and emotional responses are severely impaired. Drinking too much alcohol can cause slurred speech, blurred vision, and loss of balance.

Liver

Long-term heavy drinking will inevitably lead to cirrhosis of the liver. The diseased liver can no longer process nutrients from the digestive tract and can no longer process ingested food. When drugs enter the human body, there are many symptoms of liver cirrhosis, and they are diffuse. These symptoms include edema (fluid retention, abdominal distension), gastric jaundice (yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes).

Skin

Alcohol is a vasodilator, which can dilate blood vessels on the surface of the body. In addition to making you look red, it can also cause excessive heat dissipation in your body tissues. This can cause you to become cold (hypothermia) when the weather is cold.

Heart

People who drink heavy alcohol can develop cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle tissue becomes weak and damaged.

Stomach

Drinking a large amount of alcohol at one time will cause you to have uncomfortable symptoms of acute gastritis. Continuous ingestion of large amounts of alcohol will lead to more serious chronic gastritis.

Reproductive organs

Alcohol can cause impotence in men. For pregnant women, even a small amount of alcohol can increase the risk of physical defects in their unborn babies. .

How much alcohol is too much?

The question should be: How much alcohol is too much for you? The effects of alcohol on the body and mind are determined by its concentration in the blood. Alcohol enters the bloodstream through the digestive system and remains there until it is broken down by the liver or excreted in the urine. The rate of decrease in blood alcohol concentration is fairly constant. No matter what the circumstances, and no matter how long it takes for you to be affected, once the alcohol reaches a peak in your blood, it takes about the same amount of time for the alcohol to leave your body as it takes the alcohol to leave those who are affected slower or more slowly than you. You are the same as fast people. However, the rate of increase in blood alcohol concentration varies with circumstances. Therefore, if you want to prevent excessive increases in blood alcohol levels, you should consider the following factors when drinking.

People with larger bodies have more blood than people with smaller bodies. When the amount of alcohol consumed is the same, the alcohol concentration in the blood of larger people rises more slowly, and the total concentration is also lower.

Eating food in the stomach and intestines while drinking will slow down the rate at which alcohol is absorbed into the blood. If you eat while drinking (or eat as a "base" before attending a social gathering), you can temporarily slow down the absorption of alcohol. Of course, you also burn more calories.

Type of Alcohol and Drinking Speed ??The slower you drink, the less intense the influence of alcohol. If you drink whiskey, large amounts of alcohol will increase your blood alcohol concentration much faster than if you drink beer. If you take a swig of whiskey, the alcohol is quickly absorbed into your system. If you sip a glass of beer slowly, the alcohol in the beer may have dissipated as you finish the glass.

Your body's tolerance level. Regular drinking will make you gradually "adapt" to the large amount of alcohol in your blood, and your brain will "get used to" being soaked in alcohol all day long. As a result, if you have been drinking heavily for many years, you may appear to be drinking normally and behaving normally. However, if someone who drinks less than you drinks your blood, he or she will definitely show up. Come drunk. Appearances are unreliable. Alcoholics may speak clearly and logically, but their ability to drive is still impaired and their brain and body continue to be damaged.

The unfortunate consequence of increased tolerance is that you have to maintain your blood alcohol concentration. Also, you will gradually need larger amounts of alcohol to get the effects of drinking. It is from this dependence that some people gradually deteriorate into alcoholics (drinking addiction).

Another thing to remember is that blood alcohol levels build up over time.

Eat while drinking Eat food while drinking, even snacks when attending social gatherings. This can slow down the rate of alcohol absorption, slowly increase the amount of alcohol in the blood, and make its peak value lower than when drinking on an empty stomach.

Excessive drinking has not only led to countless tragic events, but has also seriously affected the image of individuals and even the country. Former Russian President Yeltsin is one of them.

It is said that one day in September 1994, the then Russian President Yeltsin flew back to Moscow from Washington. He was scheduled to have a 40-minute meeting with Irish Prime Minister Reynolds on the way. Just the day before leaving Washington, U.S. President Clinton hosted a banquet for him. Although there was no hard liquor on the table, there was wine. Yeltsin only ate a small piece of meat, but he frequently raised his glass to the bottom.

After the wine hit his head, Yeltsin became more talkative and made a lot of foul language and "third-level jokes." The translator racked his brains to "purify" the swear words he said. When the plane arrived at Shannon Airport, the meeting place, Yeltsin sobered up. His wife handed him the shirt, but his buttoning hands refused to work. The accompanying officials saw that something was not going well, and after some discussion, decided to let the deputy prime minister hold a brief meeting with Reynolds on behalf of the president. When the deputy prime minister got off the plane, Yeltsin shed tears and said shamefully to the accompanying officials: "What you did has embarrassed me in front of the world."

Minimize the harm of alcohol

“This wine looks like water. It tastes spicy in your mouth and makes you feel troubled in your stomach. It makes you stumble when you walk. , get up in the middle of the night to look for water, and wake up in the morning regretting it! "This is the most realistic portrayal of excessive drinking. However, when drinking is unavoidable, how can people minimize the harmful effects of alcohol on the body?

Don’t ignore the preparation before drinking

Professor Qu believes that two preparations need to be made before drinking:

“First, choose the best drink.

The second is to eat something before drinking.