Alcohol and women’s health: 6 key facts

Everyone knows that alcohol harms our body. Beer, cocktails, wine, vodka, whiskey, martinis, champagne do not benefit anyone, but they affect the female body in a particularly destructive way, and even drinking moderately, the beautiful half of humanity puts their beauty and health at risk.

The main insidiousness of alcoholic beverages is that they act slowly and gradually, imperceptibly affecting all body systems, the brain and psyche. Funny parties with alcohol at a young age can then affect not only the well-being of the expectant mother, but also her children. What are the features of the influence of alcohol on women’s health and beauty?

The concentration of alcohol in the blood of girls with the same size of servings of alcohol is higher than that of men. This happens for the following reasons. Firstly, this is a lower body weight, and secondly, a reduced activity of the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme responsible for the processing of ethanol molecules. Most of the alcohol in an unchanged form enters the bloodstream and has a devastating effect on the internal organs.

Under the influence of drinking, cirrhosis of the liver develops in women 2.5–3 times faster, and alcohol degradation of the psyche occurs earlier, so female alcoholism is much more difficult to treat. The worst thing is that men usually become an inveterate drunkard only with the onset of immoderate libations, and for this women, “culturally” used small dosages of light alcoholic beverages are enough. The main risk factor is regularity. Alcohol knows how to wait, and year after year it does its dirty work, destroying the body and causing first psychological and then physical addiction.

The reserve of eggs is formed in girls even at the moment when they themselves were in the womb. They are not updated, and therefore any destructive factor that negatively affects health increases the risk of having children with congenital malformations and deviations. If it is enough for a man to completely give up alcohol about a year before the planned conception so that his sperm is completely renewed, then such a trick will not work with the female body.

The eggs grow and develop inside the follicles, which are a protective sheath of connective tissue and epithelial cells. Ethyl alcohol is one of the few substances entering the bloodstream that can penetrate this membrane and damage the egg, so the more a woman drinks alcohol, the higher the risk to the health of her unborn children.

Alcohol adversely affects not only the internal organs. Once upon a time the beautiful skin of a young woman’s face under its influence begins to age faster, fade, lose elasticity and become covered with wrinkles. Hair fades from it, nails become brittle. Vessels that have come out, puffiness, swelling, flabbiness, bruises under the eyes — this can become a face by the age of 30-35. After gatherings in a bar with friends, the skin is under real stress, to which their dehydration is added. Alcohol actively destroys beneficial substances (in particular vitamins C and E) involved in the formation of collagen, which ensures the elasticity of our skin and its protection from adverse external influences.

All alcoholic drinks contain a huge amount of «empty» calories, and in various sweet cocktails, liqueurs, beer — there are also a lot of fast carbohydrates that are instantly deposited on the sides and waist. Even drinking alcohol exclusively during festive feasts can be very dangerous: occasional drinking whets the appetite and turns off the control of the satiety center in the brain, followed by overeating. If such situations in which we combine alcohol and a large amount of not the most healthy food begin to occur regularly, you can wait not only for extra pounds, but also for problems with the pancreas or acute pancreatitis. And the negative factors of the impact of alcohol on the production of collagen will contribute to the appearance of an overweight companion unloved by women — cellulite.

The risk of giving birth to a sick child is higher for a drinking mother, but there is another risk — to be left without children at all. Each portion of alcohol drunk, though not by much, but reduces the chances of conception, therefore, with a planned pregnancy, it is necessary to stop drinking alcohol in advance. In the process of libations, the hormonal balance in the body is disturbed, which affects the intimate health of a woman, the menstrual cycle, and can even cause premature menopause. If you still managed to get pregnant, the risk of complications and miscarriage increases. Increases the regular use of alcoholic beverages and the chance of developing breast cancer, as shown by recent American studies. The data collected by specialists from the United States clearly demonstrated that there are no safe doses of alcohol in this regard: even 10 grams of ethyl alcohol per day increases the likelihood of getting cancer.

In the fair sex, the phenomenon of alcoholic amnesia is more often observed, when the next morning the events associated with drinking are erased from memory, leaving a feeling of guilt and shame. More common and violations of the functioning of the central nervous system — alcohol-induced insomnia, irritability, excessive nervousness. More in percentage terms among women and recorded cases of a decrease in the volume of the brain under the influence of alcohol, which leads to disruption of its normal functioning, deterioration of memory, the ability to perceive and process information.

Think about whether you should put your health at risk by drinking alcohol? But even if you don’t want to completely give up alcohol, do it at least six months before conception and continue to abstain from alcohol until the end of breastfeeding, because children are the main thing in our lives.