A beer with friends, a glass of wine with your partner, an aperitif after work or a toast at a party. Alcohol may seem deeply rooted in our lives and culture, but unfortunately it also causes negative effects on the human body, increasing the risk of cancer and other chronic diseases and reducing our immunity to infectious diseases. Yet, according to a report published in the journal Addiction, much of the damage caused by alcohol is reversible.
The effects of alcohol
Let’s go step by step. According to the most recent data, alcohol consumption is directly responsible for 62 different diseases, including alcohol-related heart disease, psychotic disorders, gastritis, ulcers, pancreatitis and fatty liver disease, as well as more well-known conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome and liver cirrhosis. “These diseases are 100% attributable to alcohol – explained Jürgen Rehm, senior researcher at the Institute for mental health policy research in Toronto -, which means that without alcohol consumption they would not even exist. There are 30 other diseases in which alcohol plays a role, such as breast cancer and other types of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and dementia. These diseases would exist even without alcohol consumption, but alcohol is responsible for a certain percentage of them”.
As explained by Rehm, who has been researching alcohol since 2003 in collaboration with the World Health Organization and scientists in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom, the body’s ability to fight infections is also compromised. Even a single glass can damage the immune system, reducing its ability to fight pathogens within 20 minutes of drinking it. Chronic alcohol consumption can have a lifelong impact on vital immune cells.
According to Rehm, the health harms caused by alcohol are greatest for those who drink excessively on a daily basis, but there’s a problem: Research often defines excessive alcohol consumption as more than 40 grams of pure alcohol per day for women and 60 grams per day for men. Translated, that’s 1.4 ounces of liquor for women (equal to approximately 0.051 liters or 51 ml) and 2.1 ounces for men (equal to approximately 0.076 liters or 76 ml). However, very high thresholds.
Reversible damage
Despite the alarming news, as experts explain, many of the diseases attributed to alcohol can be slowed down, stopped and even reversed if timely action is taken: “Our team at the institute has been working on a free app that shows how many minutes and days of life are lost with each alcoholic drink – Rehm explained to CNN -. It will also show how many minutes and days are gained by stopping drinking.”
As mentioned, alcohol compromises the capacity of the innate immune system, the one we are born with, as well as the acquired immunity developed following exposure to other pathogens. Just a small amount of alcohol immediately depresses the ability of key cells of the immune system, such as macrophages, neutrophils and natural killer cells, to fight viruses, bacterial infections and tumor cells. Even a single evening of excesses, with 4-5 drinks in a few hours, can compromise the immune response for 24 hours: “Fortunately these effects do not last long – explained Rehm -: depending on the quantity consumed, the body recovers within a few days or a week”.
However, chronic alcohol abuse can compromise or destroy natural killer cells and T lymphocytes, the elite cells of the immune system, increasing vulnerability to infections such as pneumonia, HIV and tuberculosis. While long-term abstinence can help, experts say some damage may be only partially reversible, depending on the duration and amount of alcohol consumed. In fact, severe alcoholics can even severely compromise the immune system.
The risk of cancer
Alcohol abuse is also linked to cancer, as pointed out by Vivek Murthy, a former US surgeon: “Alcohol is a well-known and preventable cause of cancer, responsible for approximately 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths each year in the United States, more than the 13,500 alcohol-related traffic deaths that occur each year in the United States; yet most Americans are unaware of this risk.” According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), all types of alcohol contribute to the development of cancer by damaging DNA and increasing chronic inflammation. For women, the greatest risk is alcohol-associated breast cancer. In men, colorectal cancer is the most frequently alcohol-related cancer.
What to do? Simple: stop drinking. According to experts, eliminating alcohol from your daily life can reverse the damage to your health, as long as it happens before permanent damage occurs. “Abstinence stops the progression of any cancer caused by alcohol, but it is not a guarantee,” explained Sinclair Carr, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard TH Chan school of public health in Boston and affiliated with the Institute for health metrics and evaluation. “Cancer takes years to develop. Therefore, you may already have a cancer in your body caused by alcohol, and you could still develop one even after you stop drinking. However, if you have no cancer in your body and you stop drinking, you eliminate the risk of developing a cancer. cancer attributable to alcohol”.
How long does it take before regular alcohol consumption contributes to the development of cancer? “About 30 years, the same period as tobacco – said Rehm -. If you drink a lot, you can think of it like this: one drink is equivalent to one cigarette. Shocking, right?”. “Of course, the causes of cancer are multiple – he specified -, but as far as alcohol is concerned, cancer is a chronic disease in which “stopping drinking can have positive outcomes, because much of the damage can be reversed. The problem is that most people start thinking about quitting when it’s almost too late to experience the full benefits of reversing the damage.”
Brain damage
Among the other damage discovered by science there are also brain damage. Alcohol abuse destroys connections between neurons, causing the brain to shrink, especially in areas responsible for memory and decision making. Even in this case, as explained by Carr, you can reverse it by stopping consumption: “Imaging studies suggest that brain atrophy, or the reduction of brain tissue, can partially regress within a few weeks or months of stopping alcohol consumption, with measurable changes often starting in the first few weeks. Cognitive functions such as attention, executive functions and memory can also improve with abstinence.” Research continues, but obviously the advice of experts is always the same: don’t start drinking, and if you drink, do it as little as possible or stop.