Remind those who love to drink: if there are 3 kinds of discomfort after drinking, it is your body reminding you that it is time to quit drinking

Do you know what happens to a person who has been drinking for a long time, if he suddenly "doesn't drink" for a month, what will happen to his body?

"Being more in control of your drinking habits."

"It's also joyful to realize that I'm not dependent on alcohol."

"We lost weight."

"Sleep quality improved."

"More energy."

"Overall health improved."

These changes are among the health benefits described by those who witnessed the "Quit January" campaign organized by the British charity Alcohol Change UK.

A study by the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom also found that "living without alcohol for a month can improve life, and these benefits are long-lasting."

1. A study of 4.5 million people: The more you drink, the easier it is to be targeted by cancer!

How many people did alcohol kill? A study published in "The Lancet Oncology" shows that in 2020, there will be 740,000 new cases of cancer worldwide related to alcohol consumption.

A South Korean study involving 4.5 million people published on JAMA Network Open found that increased alcohol intake was associated with an increased risk of cancer. On the contrary, long-term abstinence from alcohol or reduction of alcohol intake can reduce cancer risk .

The study included 4.5 million insured persons aged 40 and over in the National Health Insurance System (NHIS) of South Korea who had recorded alcohol consumption and physical examination data in 2009 and 2011, and the average follow-up time was 6.4 years.

According to the alcohol consumption and drinking frequency of the participants, the researchers divided them into non-drinking (0 g/day), light drinking (<15 g/day), moderate drinking (15-29.9 g/day) and heavy drinking (≥30 g/day) group.

Participants were then further divided into nondrinkers, abstainers, decreased drinkers, level drinkers, and increased drinkers based on changes in drinking between 2009 and 2011.

Ultimately, the researchers found that:

• Among participants in each group, those who drank more alcohol had a higher risk of alcohol-related cancer and overall cancer risk than those in the same group;
• The risk of alcohol-related cancers increased by 3%, 10%, and 34%, respectively, as participants progressed from nondrinkers to light, moderate, and heavy drinkers;
• The risk of alcohol-related cancers increased by 10 percent when participants' alcohol consumption increased from light to moderate and by 17 percent when it increased to heavy.

So, did the risk of alcohol-related cancers decrease for participants whose alcohol intake decreased?

The results of the study showed that if heavy drinkers become moderate or light drinkers, the risk of alcohol-related cancers can be reduced by 9% or 8%, respectively, and the risk of all cancers can be reduced by 4% or 8% .

It can be seen that although the effect of reducing the risk of cancer after alcohol intake is not significant for moderate drinkers, it is not completely ineffective.

All in all, drinking less or even quitting alcohol will be more beneficial to your health.

After all, in addition to increasing the risk of cancer, drinking alcohol will also bring a series of harms to the body, such as dulling the brain, causing liver fibrosis, damaging the gastrointestinal tract, and changing the balance of sex hormones.

2. There are 3 signs in the body, it is time to quit drinking

After drinking, alcohol enters the human body, and the decomposition products are toxic to liver cells, which can cause liver damage and cause alcoholic fatty liver.

When fat continues to accumulate in the liver, it will cause hepatitis, liver cell swelling, inflammatory cell infiltration and other problems, and finally develop into liver cirrhosis, leading to an increased risk of liver cancer.

Professor Chen Huaiyu, Chief Physician of the Liver Disease Center of Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University, reminded that the damage caused by alcoholic liver disease to the body is irreversible . If you do not intervene in time and carry out standardized treatment, you will miss the best time and can no longer repair the liver.

Therefore, if the following abnormalities appear in the body, it is the body reminding you that it is time to quit drinking:

1. Right upper quadrant pain

There is obvious pain in the right upper abdomen, which may be that alcoholic liver has caused progressive necrosis of liver cells and perihepatitis.

2. Long-term abdominal distension

Long-term abdominal distension, if it has nothing to do with digestive diseases after investigation, may be caused by hepatosplenomegaly caused by alcoholic liver.

3. Decreased appetite

Loss of appetite is a common symptom of digestive disorders and has also been linked to alcoholic liver disease. If the appetite decreases after drinking, accompanied by nausea, vomiting and other symptoms, it means that the liver function has been severely damaged and the gastrointestinal function has been affected.

3. Drinking alcohol in these 3 periods is the most harmful! How to avoid it?

Therefore, drinking is harmful to health, especially during these three periods, it is more harmful to the body!

An article published in the "British Medical Journal" (BMJ) by Australian researchers pointed out that during a person's life, the dynamic changes in the brain during pregnancy, late adolescence and old age are the most sensitive to the neurotoxicity of alcohol .

In other words, the damage caused by drinking alcohol during these three periods is the greatest. The reason is that the changes in the neural circuits in these three periods are relatively large:

• Pregnancy: a large number of fetal neurons are produced, migrated and differentiated, and a large number of cells undergo apoptosis;
• Late puberty: i.e., synaptic pruning and axonal hypermyelination at age 15-19;
• Old age: That is, over the age of 65, the rate of brain shrinkage accelerates, and the number of neurons, dendritic spines, and synapses decreases.

So if you need to drink alcohol on some unavoidable occasions, is there any way to minimize the harm of alcohol to your body?

1. Do not drink on an empty stomach

Do not drink on an empty stomach. Before drinking, you can drink a glass of milk or yogurt and eat a few slices of bread to cushion your stomach and reduce the stimulation of alcohol on the gastric mucosa. If you drink a lot of alcohol, you can take vitamin B complex before drinking, which has a protective effect on the liver .

2. Drink plenty of boiled water

When drinking, you can drink more plain water to promote the excretion of alcohol and reduce the burden on the liver . When drinking beer, go to the toilet as soon as you feel the urge to urinate, and don't hold back your urine. When drinking white wine, you can add some ice cubes to the white wine.

3. No need to mix drinks with wine

Do not mix the beverage with wine, the carbonic acid in the beverage will make the absorption of alcohol faster and make the alcohol pass through the blood-brain barrier faster, resulting in chronic alcoholism.

4. Try to choose low-alcohol alcohol

Try not to drink high-alcohol alcohol and choose low-alcohol alcohol. Under the premise of the same intake, high-alcohol alcohol is more harmful to the liver than low-alcohol alcohol. And when drinking, don't take big gulps, but sip small sips. Small sips are not easy to get drunk, and you can also control your intake .

Alcohol belongs to a class of carcinogens, the more exposure, the greater the risk of cancer. Therefore, nondrinkers had a lower risk of cancer than drinkers, and low drinkers had a lower risk of cancer than heavy drinkers, all other things being equal.

In any case, reducing alcohol intake, or abstaining from alcohol, is of great benefit to health.

References

[1] "Fatty liver to liver cancer only needs 4 steps, 4 tricks to get rid of fatty liver". Medical Digestive Liver Disease Channel. 2022-09-04

[2] "Reunion during the Spring Festival, "workers" please drink healthily like this". The Fourth Hospital of Guangyi Medical University. 2021-02-08

[3] "The Lancet: Everyone who drinks alcohol has a higher risk of cancer". Health World. 2020-08-08

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