Drinking Too Much Can Effect Many of Your Body's Systems

Excessive alcohol consumption can have serious effects on your body. Whether you have too much to drink on a single occasion or over a long period of time, alcohol can cause you problems with your health.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) here are some of the ways that drinking alcohol to excess can affect your body:

Brain

Alcohol interferes with the brain’s communication pathways, and can affect the way the brain looks and works. These disruptions can change mood and behavior, and make it harder to think clearly and move with coordination.

Heart

Drinking a lot over a long time or too much on a single occasion can damage the heart, causing problems including:

• Cardiomyopathy – Stretching and drooping of heart muscle
• Arrhythmias – Irregular heart beat
• Stroke
• High blood pressure

Liver

Heavy drinking takes a toll on the liver, and can lead to a variety of problems and liver inflammations including:

• Steatosis, or fatty liver
• Alcoholic hepatitis
• Fibrosis
• Cirrhosis

Pancreas

Alcohol causes the pancreas to produce toxic substances that can eventually lead to pancreatitis, a dangerous inflammation and swelling of the blood vessels in the pancreas that prevents proper digestion.

Cancer

Drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk of developing certain cancers, including cancers of the:

• Mouth
• Esophagus
• Throat
• Liver
• Breast

Immune System

Drinking too much can weaken your immune system, making your body a much easier target for disease. Chronic drinkers are more liable to contract diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis than people who do not drink too much. Drinking a lot on a single occasion slows your body’s ability to ward off infections – even up to 24 hours after getting drunk.

Source: National Intitute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "Alcohol's Effects on the Body." Alcohol & Your Health Updated 2017.

Learn more about the effects of alcohol.