Light-to-moderate drinking may carry risks to the brain, new study says

Also, it may worsen pre-existing conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. Besides a person’s health, drinking alcohol can have other negative effects on his or her body. Here is a closer look at how a person’s looks suffer from excessive alcohol consumption. Family physicians must manage medical complications, coordinate alcohol-related treatment and address the consequences of alcoholism for family members and the community.

Dehydration can sap your skin of moisture and elasticity, leading to sagginess, dryness, and wrinkles. Moreover, the older you get, the more likely you are to be dehydrated. Even one night of heavy drinking can make your lines and wrinkles look more pronounced. Does the effects of alcohol on the skin and aging cause wrinkles? The damaging effects of alcohol on skin and aging wreak havoc on your health and could make you look and feel older than you are.

How Alcohol Changes the Aging Process

By the alcohol and aging a person uncovers a problem, it may be too late. The pros and cons of drinking alcohol are frequently relayed, and there’s a new addition to the ever-growing list. Research conducted by Oxford Population Health, part of the University of Oxford, indicates excessive alcohol consumption can speed up the aging process at a biological level. Considering the mounting evidence of harmful effects of alcohol use, and the fact that many individuals stop drinking as they age, the effect of light to moderate drinking on epigenetic aging needs to be interpreted cautiously. Broken capillaries, the tiny blood vessels near the surface of the skin, tend to crop up as you get older.

Clearly banning doesn’t work well, think prohibition, the health authorities will somehow have to change the narrative of excessive drinking as a ‘fun’ and a socially acceptable thing to do. To begin, alcohol can deplete levels of vitamins, such as vitamin A, which are crucial to the health of the skin. Vitamin A depletion can reduce levels of collagen, which can result in premature wrinkles as well as a loss of elasticity and fullness in the face. Crucially, human life expectancy has exponentially increase over the last decades. During the lifespan, the human body and brain grow, develop and change.

What are signs of alcohol misuse or alcohol use disorder?

Others includehigh blood pressure,immune system disorders,stroke riskanddiabetes. Previous studies have also concluded that alcohol only begins to significantly damage health after a threshold is surpassed, rather than increasing uniformly with every drink consumed. After the 17-unit threshold is met, however, DNA starts to degrade quickly with each extra alcoholic beverage.Those who consumed 32 units of alcohol a week, for example, were three years older biologically than someone who drank 10. Since alcohol depletes levels of vitamins, the skin’s collagen levels plummet. As a result, a person’s skin may lose all elasticity and become wrinkled. Wrinkles may be caused by alcohol’s ability to dehydrate the skin as well.

Chronic alcohol consumption does not automatically lead to regular binge drinking or regular heavy consumption of alcohol, since besides the regularity of the consumption, the amount of alcohol intake affects the severity of cognitive damage. Many alcohol consumers consume it on a regular basis, but on a low to moderate level. For instance, Moussa et al. found no observable cognitive decline in working memory and attention of older adults, who are regularly drinkers on a low to moderate level. Nutrition and lifestyle also influence biological changes in the aging brain, such as nicotine intake and chronic alcohol consumption (Beach et al., 2015). Studies on the interplay of chronic alcohol intake and changes in cognition and brain plasticity have revealed mixed results on whether it accelerates cognitive decline or preserves cognitive functions in the aging brain.