It all depends on how much and what you pour into your glass.
Is there a safe dose of alcohol? Is it better to drink a little every day or a lot but once a week?
We tell you together with a doctor.
Those who love to drink say that alcoholic beverages dilate blood vessels, and some doctors allegedly recommend having a shot or two once in a while. Opponents of alcohol argue that you should not drink at all, especially at risk of cardiovascular disease. Who is to be believed? And what is actually safer for your health?
Is it safer to drink a lot, but rarely, or a little, but regularly?
It all depends on how much and what exactly you pour into your glass. For example, to “prevent” the formation of blood clots, 50 ml of quality red wine – that is just a few sips – is enough. But rarely does anyone stop at that amount.
The ancient Greek healer Hippocrates tried using wine to treat various diseases. It was also quite common in olden times in France.
- Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines were prescribed for bloating;
- from the Côte de Provence, for obesity;
- from Bergerac – for high cholesterol;
- baths of perfumed Muscat de Frontignan, for herpes;
- wines from Saint-Amour for problems with sexual function;
- Beaune Eau Gazeuse (diluted with sparkling water) for cirrhosis.
But despite the milestones of history, in terms of modern medicine, daily consumption of even a seemingly innocuous beverage like wine is not safe for health.
Nevertheless, wine does have health benefits. Read more about them in this article.
What happens to the body if you drink alcohol regularly
Gastrointestinal diseases
If alcohol is ingested every day, it can cause damage to the bacteria in the stomach that are responsible for normal digestion. Having a high acidity index, alcoholic beverages can cause damage to the walls of the stomach and intestines.
Circulatory Disruption
In excessive amounts, ethanol increases blood pressure, clots the blood, and disrupts blood flow to the cerebral and coronary vessels. Alcohol provokes the development of a heart attack, stroke, hypertensive crisis. With prolonged use, irreversible heart and brain diseases develop – alcoholic cardiomyopathy, encephalopathy.
Systematic intake of alcohol for several years leads to pain in the heart area. This can cause an increase in blood pressure and the development of hypertension, atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease. All these consequences appear even with the consumption of 0.5 liters of beer several times a week.
Liver problems and heart dysfunction
Excessive or systemic alcohol, being in the aqueous medium, dissolves fats, causes sticking of red blood cells and blockage of capillaries, leads to increased deposition of fat in the liver and heart in the periods between alcohol intake.
Alcohol is a risk factor for hypertension: from 60 ml per day, your blood pressure increases in direct relation to the amount you drink – the more often you drink, the worse the consequences.
Alcohol becomes extremely dangerous when taking blood thinning anticoagulants and even vitamin C at the same time. The fact is that if the liver is loaded with alcohol, it has no time to break down the drug, which means that the level of the drug in the blood rises, which can lead to the risk of bleeding.
So to drink or not to drink, that is the question?
Alcohol in small amounts thins the blood and reduces the risk of deep vein blood clots. But the main thing here is moderate consumption, and this is a very fine line.
On average, it takes three days for the body to clear itself of the decay products of ethanol. Therefore, rare “binges” (no, not every weekend, but sometimes!) will be safer than daily alcohol consumption. Because the risks of dosage violations with daily drinking are very high. Sometimes and rarely is safer than a little bit every day, especially if that “little bit” exceeds acceptable toxic standards.
There is no safe dose of alcohol because the human body is not designed for any amount of alcohol.
