Remind those who love to drink: If you have 3 kinds of discomfort after drinking, your body is reminding you to quit drinking

Do you know what will happen to a person who has been drinking for a long time if he suddenly "abstains from alcohol" for a month?

"You can have better control over your drinking habits."

"It's also nice to realize that you're not dependent on alcohol."

"I lost weight."

"Sleep quality improved."

"More energy."

"Improved overall health."

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

A study by the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom also found that "no alcohol for 1 month can improve life, and these benefits are long-lasting".

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

How many people does alcohol harm? According to a study published in The Lancet Oncology, 740,000 new cancers worldwide in 2020 were associated with alcohol consumption.

A South Korean study involving 4.5 million people, published in JAMA Network Open, found that increased alcohol intake was associated with an increased risk of cancer. Conversely, long-term abstinence or reduced alcohol intake could reduce cancer risk .

The study included 4.5 million people over the age of 40 in the National Health Insurance System (NHIS) of Korea who had recorded alcohol consumption and physical examination data in 2009 and 2011. The mean follow-up period was 6.4 years.

According to the amount and frequency of alcohol consumption, the researchers classified them as no alcohol (0 g/day), light alcohol consumption (<15 g/day), moderate alcohol consumption (15-29.9 g/day) and heavy alcohol consumption. (≥30 g/day) group.

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

Ultimately, the researchers found:

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

So, was the risk of alcohol-related cancers reduced for participants with reduced alcohol intake?

The results of the study showed that if a heavy drinker became a moderate or light drinker, the risk of alcohol-related cancer could be reduced by 9% or 8%, respectively, and the risk of full cancer could be reduced by 4% or 8% .

Thus, although for moderate drinkers, the effect of reducing cancer risk after alcohol intake was not significant, it was not completely ineffective.

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

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

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

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

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 .

Therefore, if the following abnormality occurs 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 quadrant, 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 is not related to digestive diseases after investigation, may be caused by hepatosplenomegaly caused by alcoholic liver.

3. Decreased appetite

Loss of appetite, a common symptom of digestive disorders, is also associated with alcoholic liver disease. If the appetite decreases after drinking alcohol, accompanied by symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, it means that the liver function has been severely damaged, affecting the function of the gastrointestinal tract.

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

Therefore, drinking alcohol is detrimental to health, especially during these three periods, it will do more harm to the body!

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

In other words, these three periods of alcohol consumption caused the greatest harm to the body. The reason is that the changes in 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. 15-19 years of age synaptic pruning and increased axonal myelination;
• Old age: over the age of 65, the brain shrinks faster and the number of neurons, dendritic spines and synapses decreases.

Then if you encounter some unavoidable occasions where you need to drink, what are the ways to minimize the harm of alcohol to the 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, eat a few slices of bread, and pad your stomach to reduce the stimulation of alcohol on the gastric mucosa. If you drink a lot, you can take vitamin B before drinking, which has a protective effect on the liver .

2. Drink more water

When drinking, you can drink more boiled water to promote the excretion of alcohol from the body and reduce the burden on the liver . When drinking beer, if you feel the urge to urinate, you should go to the toilet immediately, and don't hold back your urine. When drinking baijiu, you can add some ice cubes to the baijiu.

3. Do not mix drinks with wine

Do not mix beverages with alcohol, the carbonic acid in beverages will make alcohol absorbed faster , make alcohol pass through the blood-brain barrier faster, and cause chronic alcoholism.

4. Try to choose low alcohol alcohol

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

Alcohol belongs to a class of carcinogens, and the greater the exposure, the greater the risk of cancer. So, regardless of other conditions, nondrinkers had a lower risk of cancer than drinkers, and less drinkers had a lower risk of cancer than more drinkers.

In any case, cutting down on alcohol intake, or sticking to abstinence, has great health benefits.

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". Fourth Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University. 2021-02-08

[3] The Lancet: Everyone who drinks alcohol on their face has a higher risk of cancer. Health Industry. 2020-08-08

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