Appearance
If you’re trying to watch your waistline, drinking too much alcohol can be disastrous! A man drinking five pints of 5% ABV lager a week for a year consumes the same number of calories as someone who eats 292 glazed doughnuts in a year.
Drinking too much alcohol isn’t great news for your skin either. As well as causing bloating and dark circles under your eyes, alcohol dries out your skin and can lead to wrinkles and premature aging. If you drink heavily you may develop acne rosacea, a skin disorder that starts with a tendency to blush and flush easily and can progress to facial disfiguration, a condition known as rhinophyma.
Alcohol poisoning
More than 35,000 people were admitted to hospital with alcohol poisoning in England in 2010/11
(16,200 men and 19,800 women) – that’s more than 600 every week (1)
In the worst cases, alcohol poisoning can cause lung damage (as you inhale your own vomit) and even lead to a heart attack.
Many traditional ‘cures’ for alcohol poisoning, such as drinking black coffee; just don’t work – or even make things worse. To find out the best way to respond, read our Alcohol poisoning factsheet.
Diseases and cancers Liver disease
While rates of liver disease are falling in the rest of Europe, they are rising in the UK. In England, there has been a 25% increase in deaths from liver disease in under a decade (2) (from 9,231 in 2001 to 11,575 in 2009).
Liver disease used to affect mainly drinkers in middle age, but now sufferers are getting younger. – more than 1 in 10 of deaths of people in their 40s are from liver disease, most of them from alcoholic liver disease.
Cancer
Alcohol misuse is an important factor in a number of cancers, including liver and mouth cancers, both of which are on the increase (3) (4). Alcohol is second only to smoking as a risk factor for oral and digestive tract cancers.
Evidence suggests that this could be because when you drink, the alcohol in your body is converted into a toxic chemical called acetaldehyde. This can damage your DNA and stop your cells from repairing that damage, which can lead to cancerFind out more in our Alcohol and cancer factsheet.
Pancreatitis and diabetes
Pancreatitis is when your pancreas becomes inflamed and its cells are damaged. Heavy drinking can cause pancreatitis. Around half of people with chronic pancreatitis develop diabetes. This is because the damaged pancreas cannot make insulin (which you need to regulate your blood sugar) (5).
Heart disease
With alcohol and the heart, it’s a benefit and risk trade off. So, for example, alcohol’s anti-clotting ability, potentially protective against heart attack, may increase the risk of haemorrhagic stroke (when a blood vessel bursts inside the brain), or bleeding within the brain. Beyond the daily unit guidelines, alcohol’s potential benefits on the heart are outweighed by the risks of developing other illnesses, such as liver disease or cancer.
Mental health
Alcohol alters the brain’s chemistry and increases the risk of depression. It is often associated with a range of mental health problems A recent British survey found that people suffering from anxiety or depression were twice as likely to be heavy or problem drinkers.
Extreme levels of drinking (defined as more than 30 units per day for several weeks) can occasionally cause ‘psychosis’, a severe mental illness where hallucinations and delusions of persecution develop.
Psychotic symptoms can also occur when very heavy drinkers suddenly stop drinking and develop a
condition known as ‘delirium tremens’.
Heavy drinking often leads to work and family problems, which in turn can lead to isolation and
depression. For heavy drinkers who drink daily and become dependent on alcohol, there can be
withdrawal symptoms (nervousness, tremors, palpitations) which resemble severe anxiety, and may even cause phobias, such as a fear of going out.
Dependence
If you drink large quantities of alcohol on a regular basis you run the risk of becoming addicted. The NHS estimates that around 9% of men in the UK and 4% of UK women show signs of alcohol dependence (sometimes known as ‘alcoholism’) (6). This can have serious effects on their families, friends and partners, as well as their mental health.
Titany answered the question on November 9, 2021 at 11:20