We are going to have a busy and fun period with Christmas drinks, dinners with family and to top it all off, we have New Year's Eve. These days are often accompanied by a glass of alcohol. Especially if you are in good company. Alcohol has become an indispensable part of our Western culture. Yet it is good to take a moment to consider what exactly alcohol does to you.
To get straight to the point, alcohol is harmful. Even little bits. The Dutch Health Council advises against drinking alcohol or limiting it to 1 glass per day. If alcohol is consumed in large quantities, you run an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease and associated premature death. In addition, alcohol disrupts your hormone balance. It increases female estrogen (yes, even in men) and decreases testosterone. After 1 glass of wine, the amount of estrogen in the blood is increased by 30 percent for 24 hours. And that can worsen estrogen dominance and increase the chance of heavy periods. In addition, it has a vasodilatory effect. If you are going through menopause, it can increase the risk of hot flashes.
Blood sugar level
Your blood sugar level also rises when you drink beer, which causes your pancreas to produce insulin. Your blood sugar level will fluctuate and that will make you hungry after drinking beer. Just think of the crowds in shawarma shops after going out. Drinking a lot of beer can increase your fat percentage. Fat tissue contains an enzyme called aromatase, which ensures that testosterone is converted back into female estrogen.
Did you know that our body cannot excrete alcohol? It must first be converted into acetaldehyde. And that is also a toxic substance for our body and must be broken down by the liver. You may have noticed: men seem to tolerate alcohol better than women. And that is true. Women are less able to break down alcohol than men, because women have less of a certain enzyme. And that's why women absorb alcohol better than men.
Alcohol taxes your liver
Drinking alcohol can overload your liver. All important tasks that the liver performs are stopped in order to break down alcohol. The liver is a chemical factory that eliminates toxins and cleans up waste. The stress hormone cortisol is also broken down by your liver. The condition of your liver can also be seen in a blood test.
Are you stressed or (recovering from) adrenal fatigue? Then don't drink alcohol. After a stress response, cortisol remains active in your body for about 2 days and then it is broken down. But when you drink alcohol, the breakdown of alcohol takes precedence. And then the stress hormone cortisol remains in your body for an unnecessarily long time. And it also affects your sleep. Drinking alcohol causes you to get less deep sleep and that means you recover and rest less well.
So are you going to reward your body with a drink of water or exhaust it with an alcoholic drink? Do you opt for strong, healthy decisions or do we opt for false promises?
Richard Dekker
Enforce Master Trainer
richarddekker@enforce.nl
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