The Effects of Alcohol: How Bad Are They?
Learn what alcohol does to your body, the tools to get through hangovers, and how to identify your propensity for alcoholism.
These are my notes from The Huberman Lab Podcast episode #86 + some of my own research. I am a BIG fan of Dr. Huberman and his podcast.
What a fantastic episode this was! Andrew describes why alcohol is so detrimental to our health, and all the ways in which it impacts our system.
On a personal note, I found out that I am VERY prone to alcoholism, because of some particular things that I experience when I drink (actually, when I used to drink).
Let’s go for it.
Low Amount of Alcohol?
12–24 drinks per week, on average, or more causes neurodegeneration (a slow and progressive loss of neuronal cells in specified regions of the brain).
The “On average” is important. It means that if you have1–2 drinks a day, or 3 each day of the weekend, you’ll have the negative effects either way.
Study: Associations between alcohol consumption and gray and white matter volumes
Results: People who drank 1–2 drinks on average per day (which is considered “low amounts”) experienced a thinning of the neocortex.
Alcohol Metabolism
Alcohol is water soluble and fat-soluble.
In other words, it can pass through all the cells and tissues of the body.
This is what explains its damaging effects.
When you ingest ethanol (alcohol), which is a toxic substance, the body has to convert it.
How?
NAD converts ethanol into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is poison to the body, it kills cells.
Then, the body converts acetaldehyde into acetate, which is something that the body can use as fuel.
If the body can’t do this conversion fast enough, acetaldehyde will build up in the body and cause a lot more damage.
This conversion happens in the liver.
This process is metabolically costly. And there’s no real nutritive value in the calories. That’s why alcohol is “empty calories”.
Alcohol Effects
The acetaldehyde is what leads to the effect of being drunk, which is a poison-induced disruption.
Regular drinkers, when they drink, feel very energized and feel very good.
Occasional drinkers have a briefer period of feeling good.
So, what happens when we drink alcohol?
Some amounts of acetaldehyde and acetate cross the blood-brain barrier, so they pass into the brain.
Disruption in top-down inhibition
There’s a suppression in the activity of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (the area that is involved in thinking, planning, and suppression of impulsive behavior).
Alcohol suppresses the neural networks that are involved in memory formation and storage.
There are also long-term neural circuit changes…
The more often people drink, there are changes in the circuits that underlie habitual and impulsive behavior in ways that make those people more impulsive outside the times in which they are drinking. And when they drink, impulsive behavior is even stronger.
This aspect is fortunately reversible.
If there’s a period of abstinence these neural circuits can return to normal, except in cases where the amount of alcohol was massive and was ingested throughout a huge number of years.
Food and Alcoholic Absorption
If you eat something prior to or while drinking alcohol, it will slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, particularly if it includes all major macronutrients (carbs, fats, and protein).
If you are already drunk and eat something, it won’t diminish your drunkenness.
Serotonin
Alcohol disrupts the mood circuits, by first making them hyperactive.
Then serotonin levels drop (that’s why people feel less good, and go for another drink).
But as people drink more and more, there’s a depression of alertness and arousal. That’s why people pass out, get sleepy, etc.
Chronic drinkers (and people with a genetic predisposition for alcoholism), as they ingest more and more, they feel great.
Propensity for Alcoholism
Factors that might explain the propensity for alcoholism:
- Energy: If you see someone who is energized by alcohol all night drink after drink, that’s someone who is more likely to have problems with alcoholism.
- Blackouts: if you are someone who suffers blackouts, then the likelihood of having problems with alcohol increases.
- Age: People who start drinking at younger ages, are more predisposed to developing alcohol dependence, regardless of family history.
Alcohol and Stress
Alcohol changes the relationship between the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenals → The HPA axis.
People who drink regularly have elevated baseline levels of cortisol (not just when drinking, but always).
As a consequence, these people have more anxiety and stress.
Gut-Liver-Brain Axis
People who ingest alcohol are inducing a disruption in the gut microbiome, which is extremely important for overall health. Alcohol kills the healthy gut microbiota.
Pro-inflammatory effect: Alcohol also induces a release of inflammatory cytokines.
The lining of the gut is disrupted, so you can develop a leaky gut (bad bacteria can pass into the bloodstream).
The disruption of the gut microbiome and the inflammatory features of alcohol impairs the neural circuits that control the regulation of alcohol intake, which in consequence causes more drinking.
How to replenish the gut microbiota?
Two-Four servings of fermented foods per day.
For everything about microbiome health, refer to these articles:
Enhance Your Gut Microbiome for Brain & Overall Health
How to Build, Maintain & Repair Gut Health
Hangover
Sleep after alcohol is not as good, so even if you think you are “sleeping like a baby”, the architecture of sleep is disrupted. The sleep is not high quality.
Tool: get those gut microbiota healthy again, as alcohol killed many of those healthy bacteria.
Headaches: occur due to vasoconstriction.
Tool: Deliberate cold exposure: increasing levels of epinephrine helps with alcohol clearance.
However, be careful:
Alcohols lower core body temperature. If you do cold exposure with alcohol in your system, there’s the possibility of experiencing hypothermia, because alcohol disrupts how your body regulates temperature.
Tool: Ingest Electrolytes
Alcohol is a diuretic. It causes dehydration.
Make sure you ingest enough electrolytes (sodium, potassium, and magnesium) to replenish the proper levels, and drink two glasses of water for every alcoholic drink.
For more on electrolytes, go here.
Examine.com Hangover resources:
Types of Alcohol That Induce The Worse Hangover. List, in order:
- Brandy
- Wine
- Rum
- Vodka
- Beer
It’s not true that sugary drinks induce a deeper hangover.
Alcohol Tolerance
Tolerance refers to the reduced effects of alcohol with repeated exposure.
When you start drinking, there’s an increase in dopaminergic and serotonergic transmission.
After that, there is a long and slow reduction in dopamine and serotonin.
As you have more tolerance, you get less of the “good” stuff and more of the bad stuff.
If you abstain from drinking, these systems can reset.
Resveratrol
Resveratrol can be very good for your health and increase longevity. (For more about longevity, go here).
Wine has resveratrol. However, the amount of red wine that you’d need to drink to get the resveratrol needed is too high, so it is detrimental.
Alcohol and Cancer
Alcohol changes gene expression, which therefore causes cancer, particularly breast cancer.
Alcohol accelerates the proliferation of the wrong types of cells.
Breast cancer in women: there’s a 4–13% increase in the risk of breast cancer for every 10grams of alcohol consumed. 1 glass of wine is around 10grams.
Mitigating cancer risk:
- Folate and vitamin b12: decrease the risk of cancer, but it does not offset it.
Alcohol and Pregnancy
You should never drink alcohol when pregnant. That’s it.
Fetal alcohol syndrome is a condition in a child that results from alcohol exposure during the mother’s pregnancy. Consequences include: Diminished brain, organ, and limb development.
Alcohol and Hormones
Alcohol increases the conversion of testosterone into estrogen.
I hope you found this useful, but I still highly recommend watching the entire episode.
I post these notes for every Huberman Lab episode. If you liked it, please feel free to check out the ones that are already published as well.
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