It was going to happen sooner or later. We were going to write about alcohol and how it impacts our bodies at some stage. Today is that day. What we want to explore today are some of the reasons we would advise people to cut their alcohol intake drastically, and even stop drinking it all together. We'll show a few of the well known reasons but also look at some of the lesser known reasons why reducing your alcohol intake might be a good idea.
The more well known reasons include reducing your calorie intake, reducing your sugar intake and preventing the liver damage that is associated with alcohol consumption. Straight away that's 3 good reasons to cut alcohol consumption that people already know about. How about some more though...
To metabolise alcohol your body pretty much puts everything else on hold. Alcohol is a toxin and your body views it as such. When you have alcohol in your blood you body with divert metabolic processes to get rid of the alcohol. What that means is instead of focusing on digesting food, managing sugar levels and monitoring hormone levels your body (and mainly liver) will focus on getting rid of the alcohol. Some impacts of this have been shown to be reduced digestive efficiency and even digestive tract damage, hypoglycemia and hormone imbalances.
Looking at the hormone imbalances a little more closely you can see that in women the levels of circulating oestrogen levels rises with even moderate alcohol intake. Not only that, but progesterone levels fall. Oestrogen levels are thought to rise for 2 mains reasons - conversion of testosterone to oestrogen as a side effect of alcohol metabolism and the oxidation of oestradial to oestrogen, again as a side effect of alcohol consumption. Increased oestrogen levels has been shown to have impacts on fertility and general health in women.
Here's an example of a study that shows some of the things we're talking about:
http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/5/417.full
In men alcohol has a severe impact of testosterone levels. There are many studies that show men that drink alcohol will have reduced testosterone levels. Two main reasons behind this are reduced production of testosterone due to the toxic effects of alcohol on the testes and also the increased activity of some liver enzymes (due to the metabolism of alcohol) that 'destroy' testosterone. Neither of these things is particularly desirable in men and will reduce the anabolic effects of testosterone in the body (fat burn / muscle build) and impact fertility.
Here's a study with some of those effects listed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/958274
The take away from today's article? Hopefully it'll give you another reason to reduce your alcohol intake other than the ones you're already aware of. Please do continue to search around the web for more info and more evidence of the effects of alcohol if you're at all interested. It's your choice to drink alcohol and we respect everyone's own decision, we're just trying to make sure you've got as much info as possible to help you make an informed decision!
The more well known reasons include reducing your calorie intake, reducing your sugar intake and preventing the liver damage that is associated with alcohol consumption. Straight away that's 3 good reasons to cut alcohol consumption that people already know about. How about some more though...
To metabolise alcohol your body pretty much puts everything else on hold. Alcohol is a toxin and your body views it as such. When you have alcohol in your blood you body with divert metabolic processes to get rid of the alcohol. What that means is instead of focusing on digesting food, managing sugar levels and monitoring hormone levels your body (and mainly liver) will focus on getting rid of the alcohol. Some impacts of this have been shown to be reduced digestive efficiency and even digestive tract damage, hypoglycemia and hormone imbalances.
Looking at the hormone imbalances a little more closely you can see that in women the levels of circulating oestrogen levels rises with even moderate alcohol intake. Not only that, but progesterone levels fall. Oestrogen levels are thought to rise for 2 mains reasons - conversion of testosterone to oestrogen as a side effect of alcohol metabolism and the oxidation of oestradial to oestrogen, again as a side effect of alcohol consumption. Increased oestrogen levels has been shown to have impacts on fertility and general health in women.
Here's an example of a study that shows some of the things we're talking about:
http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/5/417.full
In men alcohol has a severe impact of testosterone levels. There are many studies that show men that drink alcohol will have reduced testosterone levels. Two main reasons behind this are reduced production of testosterone due to the toxic effects of alcohol on the testes and also the increased activity of some liver enzymes (due to the metabolism of alcohol) that 'destroy' testosterone. Neither of these things is particularly desirable in men and will reduce the anabolic effects of testosterone in the body (fat burn / muscle build) and impact fertility.
Here's a study with some of those effects listed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/958274
The take away from today's article? Hopefully it'll give you another reason to reduce your alcohol intake other than the ones you're already aware of. Please do continue to search around the web for more info and more evidence of the effects of alcohol if you're at all interested. It's your choice to drink alcohol and we respect everyone's own decision, we're just trying to make sure you've got as much info as possible to help you make an informed decision!
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