The most obvious harm of excessive drinking is drunkenness, which is actually alcoholism. If it is chronic poisoning, it will lead to accelerated heart beating and arteriosclerosis, which will lead to insufficient blood supply to the brain and weak brain function; Alcohol stimulates the stomach and destroys mucous membranes, so people who drink well often have stomach problems, which can cause gastric ulcers in severe cases. Long-term ulcers can cause cancer, and the consequences are unimaginable. Stimulated by alcohol, blood circulation is accelerated, and excessive drinking will cause a lot of heat to be emitted sharply. After insufficient calories, people are more likely to get "minor illnesses" such as colds. Modern people think that such minor illnesses are the prelude to serious illnesses. Acute alcoholism can paralyze people's central nervous system or heart, and hypertensive patients can induce myocardial infarction and cerebral vascular rupture. These are terrible symptoms that directly threaten people's lives, not to mention personal injury and death caused by alcohol mistakes. Recently, I read in the newspaper that a "drinking contest" was held somewhere in the United States. The first prize was a 24-year-old young man, but he died of deep alcohol anesthesia.
The harm of excessive drinking is systemic.
As early as 1992, the domestic project of "Cooperative Research on Alcohol Addiction among Four Occupations in Nine Cities of China" has shown that the main high-risk groups of alcohol addiction are heavy manual workers and people with low education level, and the prevalence rate increases with age, and the peak is around 40-50 years old. In addition to the immediate effect caused by one-time excessive drinking (commonly known as drunkenness), repeated heavy drinking will also cause a variety of serious long-term diseases, and the effects of drinking on various organs of the human body are as follows.
(1) heart and brain are damaged. ① Heart: Long-term excessive drinking is the main cause of cardiovascular diseases such as cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia, coronary heart disease and hypertension. Studies have shown that moderate drinking can reduce the occurrence of heart disease. But drinking too much every day will pose a threat to the cardiovascular system. Excessive drinking will not only increase blood pressure, but also be a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, which is closely related to cerebrovascular diseases. Reducing alcohol consumption and drinking frequency is directly proportional to the decrease of blood pressure; ② Brain: In the past, it was thought that a small amount of alcohol could make people feel excited, alert and focused. However, the actual results show that this is not the case. Drinking a small amount of alcohol has a calming effect, while drinking more alcohol has serious harm to memory, attention, judgment, coordination function and emotional response. Excessive drinking can lead to slurred speech, blurred vision and loss of balance.
(2) damage to the digestive system. Because alcohol first enters the gastrointestinal tract and is metabolized by the liver, the damage to the digestive system is the first. About 900,000 people in the United States suffer from cirrhosis, and 40% ~ 90% of them have a history of excessive drinking. The occurrence of liver injury is directly related to the amount of drinking. When the alcohol consumption reaches a certain level, the risk of liver injury will suddenly increase. We'll talk about this later. Excessive drinking can also cause chronic gastrointestinal inflammation, such as nausea, indigestion, gastritis, gastric ulcer and so on.
(3) Damage to the reproductive system. It can be said with certainty that long-term excessive drinking and excessive drinking do great harm to people, especially to the reproductive system. There are mainly the following aspects: long-term drinking will delay the maturity of male sexual characteristics and reduce male fertility; Excessive drinking can induce prostatitis and even secondary dysfunction, which can cause infertility; Excessive drinking is more harmful to reproductive endocrine function: the acceleration of testosterone metabolism leads to the relative increase of estrogen, the decrease of active androgen, testicular atrophy and impotence. Even excluding the influence of age difference, the sexual desire of male patients with chronic alcoholism is obviously lower than before. About 40% of alcoholic men have impotence, and about 10% ~ 50% have ejaculation disorder. Within a few months or years after abstinence, only half of the cases returned to normal sexual function. Drinking will also harm future generations. Medical statistics prove that most of the children born to couples who love drinking are deformed; Most sons of alcoholics are mentally retarded and weak. Because alcohol can damage sperm, if the damaged sperm is fertilized, it will often affect the development of the fetus in the uterus, cause abortion, or lead to deformity, imbecile, and even leukemia. Drinking alcohol by pregnant women is more direct to the development of the fetus, because the fetus does not have an independent blood circulation system, and the required nutrients should be continuously supplied from the mother's blood. If the mother drinks alcohol, the alcohol concentration in the blood of the mother and the fetus is the same, which may lead to alcohol syndrome in the fetus, which has three characteristics. In addition, the mother's drinking and alcohol will have an adverse effect on feeding her children through milk excretion.
(4) urinary system damage. Excessive drinking can also damage the kidneys. Most of the alcohol is absorbed into the blood through the duodenum and jejunum within 30 minutes to 3 hours, and the alcohol absorbed into the blood is distributed in all aqueous tissues and body fluids. 90% of the absorbed alcohol is metabolized in the liver, and 10% is excreted by the kidneys and lungs. Although the damage of alcohol to kidney is not as prominent as that to liver, pancreas, heart, neuromuscular and other organs, it can lead to kidney damage and even renal failure through the damage to the above organs. For example, alcoholic pancreatitis, especially acute necrotizing alcoholic pancreatitis, is a common clinical critical disease, which can lead to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome with acute renal failure and high mortality. Acute alcoholism often leads to hypercalciuria, especially for long-term excessive drinkers. Hypercalcuria, hyperuricemia and hyperuricemia are important factors for the formation of renal and ureteral stones, and urinary calculi can lead to obstructive nephropathy and reduce renal function.
(5) skin. Alcohol is a vasodilator, which can dilate blood vessels on the body surface. In addition to making people look red, it will also make people's body tissues radiate too much heat, which will cause people to feel cold (hypothermia) in cold weather.
(6) The relationship between excessive drinking and asthma. It is generally believed that excessive drinking is harmful to human body, while drinking a small amount of low-alcohol wine may be beneficial to human body. But for asthma patients, no matter how much alcohol or the degree of alcohol, it is harmful. This is because alcohol can not only cause allergic diseases, but also induce asthma attacks. Symptoms of alcohol allergy usually appear about 30 minutes after drinking, such as facial and neck skin flushing, conjunctival congestion, increased heart rate, and sometimes rash, which leads to acute respiratory symptoms, such as chest tightness, wheezing or severe asthma attack. Some people have investigated 53 cases of bronchial asthma, among which 30 cases reported asthma attacks after drinking alcohol, and the proportion was quite high. At the same time, it is found that drinking hard liquor to asthma patients can make them ill immediately; Asthmatic patients can have a significant increase in respiratory resistance when drinking low-alcohol This is because the vapor of wine stimulates the stimulated receptors on the surface of trachea or bronchus, and makes the bronchial smooth muscle contract through vagus nerve reflection.
For asthma patients, heavy drinking will not only cause antibody allergic reaction, but also inhibit the central nervous system, prompting the body to release an endogenous opioid, thus causing severe bronchospasm, shallow breathing and even death. Vomiting after drunkenness can also lead to fatal asthma attacks by inhaling strong acidic substances from the stomach into the trachea.
3. Relationship between excessive drinking and liver injury
Long-term heavy drinking will almost certainly lead to cirrhosis. The diseased liver can no longer handle nutrients from the digestive tract, nor can it handle drugs ingested into the human body. There are many symptoms of cirrhosis, and they are diffuse. These symptoms include edema (fluid retention, abdominal distension) and jaundice (yellow skin and white eyes). According to statistics, there are150,000 ~ 20 million people drinking too much in the world, among which 10% ~ 20% people have alcoholic liver disease to varying degrees. Excessive drinking will poison the liver and damage the liver function. Excessive drinking will increase the burden on the liver (alcohol intake mainly depends on the oxidation and decomposition of the liver), which will damage and degenerate the liver cells and eventually lead to cirrhosis. Medically known as alcoholic liver disease, referred to as "alcoholic hepatitis." There are three types of alcoholic liver disease:
(1) alcoholic fatty liver. Generally no symptoms. Some people may have symptoms such as fatigue, burnout, loss of appetite, abdominal distension, nausea, vomiting, obesity and hepatomegaly.
(2) Alcoholic hepatitis. Patients often drink a lot of alcohol in a short time before onset. In addition to the symptoms of alcoholic fatty liver, they also have fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea. , and have obvious weight loss. Patients may have anemia, neutropenia, elevated transaminase and elevated serum bilirubin.
(3) Alcoholic cirrhosis. The patient has no symptoms in the early stage, but may have weight loss, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, fatigue, fever, dark urine, gingival bleeding and other symptoms in the middle and late stage. Symptoms such as jaundice, ascites, edema and upper gastrointestinal bleeding may appear in decompensated stage of liver cirrhosis, and anemia, leukopenia and thrombocytopenia, decreased serum albumin and increased globulin may appear in laboratory examination. In Europe and America, alcoholic cirrhosis accounts for 50% ~ 90% of all cirrhosis. Long-term excessive drinking will also affect fat metabolism and cause fatty liver. Alcohol can cause liver cell degeneration, necrosis and fibrous tissue proliferation, leading to cirrhosis. Nowadays, liver cirrhosis has become one of the five leading causes of death among men aged 25-44, mainly caused by people drinking a lot. For people who are addicted to alcohol, their liver function will decline or shrink in old age.