As someone in my mid 20’s, I am no stranger
to the weekly nights out on the drink where I’d easily consume plenty of drinks
up and beyond 10 drinks in a nightly session. Obviously, while attempting to
live a health clean lifestyle this weekly event most likely probably damages my
weekly progress more than I can maintain and overturn.
I’ve decided to investigate the effect of
alcohol on the body and see what exactly some drinks are worth.
Effect
on the body
Unfortunately, unlike protein,
carbohydrates and fats the human body cannot store alcohol. When alcohol is
swallowed it travels down the oesophagus into the stomach and the small intestine.
Here 80% is absorbed into the small intestine and 20% into the stomach. It
avoids the the normal digestive process and goes straight into the blood
stream. The body cannot store alcohol because one of the intermediate products
of alcohol metabolism is acetaldehyde which is extremely toxic to our system.
One of the organs heavily affected by alcohol
is the liver because it is the main organ that processes poisons such as
alcohol, without the liver you could not live. For those that are heavy drinkers,
this period can damage the liver due to free radicals which can attack the
nearest stable molecule, leading to a dangerous chain reaction which can result
in a disease called cirrhosis of the liver. Ultimately, cirrhosis causes scar
tissue to replace normal, healthy tissue in the liver which restricts blood
flow and forces the liver to not work as it should do. Alarmingly, on average,
studies have demonstrated an increased risk of 19% for liver cancer per 10
grams of alcohol per day for woman, compared to only 3% for men. If one was to
consume alcohol, a maximum limit of 2 per day for men and 1 drink per day for
women should be applied up to 65. Anything above this can lead to the possibility
of increased risk of liver cancer.
Now, one way to “ease” the effect of
alcohol especially on your stomach is by eating. Alcohol increases acid in your
stomach which can lead to extreme stomach pains or sores in the intestines.
Food will slow down the rate of the absorption of alcohol into the body.
Unfortunately, the body will aim to break
the alcohol first due its poison characteristics and not worry about the food. The
somewhat high content of carbohydrate levels in alcohol can be damaging to our
bodies because of our limited capacity to store those carbohydrates. Whilst
drinking, the body will experience short term periods of excess glucose which
promotes fat storage. As shown below, a simple 6 lager beers on a given night
equates to 66 grams of carbohydrates which leads to those beers providing 12-16
times the glucose our bodies need to maintain homeostasis (property of our body
system in which variables are regulated so that internal conditions remain
stable and relatively constant).
Calorie
Count in Popular Drinks
|
|
Alcohol (g)
|
Carbs (g)
|
Fat (g)
|
Calories (kcal)
|
|
Spirits (45 mL)
|
13
|
0
|
0
|
100
|
|
Wine (150 mL)
|
13
|
5
|
0
|
120
|
|
Beer (355 mL)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Light
|
11
|
5
|
0
|
105
|
|
Lager
|
13
|
11
|
0
|
145
|
|
Ale
|
13
|
12
|
0
|
150
|
|
Stout
|
11.5
|
17
|
0
|
155
|
|
Liqueur (45 mL)
|
6
|
8.4
|
6.5
|
147
|
|
Mixed Drink (45 mL rum + 90 mL coke)
|
13
|
11
|
0
|
145
|
By increasing the levels of glucose when
drinking, we enter the high toxic levels which our body must somehow expel this
alcohol energy (from the macronutrients and calories) but also the blood sugar
levels (glucose levels). The body then has two options to resolve this, oxidise
the glucose or store it. However, if we have eaten plenty during the day and
our glycogen stores are full then our bodies will use the excess glucose to
create new body fat.
So what happens when we go out for dinner
and then have some drinks? Firstly these meals usually contain a large amount
of carbohydrates (I’m looking at you Little Greek Tavern) so our bodies aim to
burn the alcohol first and then store our previous meals as fat storage which
happen to end up in the belly (bye bye 6 pack).
The problem with alcohol metabolism is that
it takes a very long time, as shown in the following image.
A simple four drinks can produce approximately
SEVEN!! Hours worth of fuel and our livers can only metabolize between 7-15
grams/alcohol per hour.
Now let’s be honest, when we go out we’re
not exactly having three drinks in the night. The issue is, we will have six to
ten drinks in the night and this is on top of all the glucose and fat stored
from all the food you have had during the day. So whilst we’re slamming down
those brewskies and chowing down our filthy kebab at 3am our bodies are most
likely still trying to burn through that alcohol at 8 or 9am the next day. On
top of that, we have to contend with all the food we’ve eaten and we could only
be resuming to normal metabolism levels at midday.
Conclusion
So now what? It’s impossible to get that
shredded body and smash out benders every week. At some point it’s going to
catch up and you’ll go from the single digit body fat % to double digit dad
bod. Firstly, we are going to put on fat by consuming more calories so at some
point we need to heavily restrict the calories we’re eating on the day of
drinking. The body finds it tougher to convert excess protein into fat, so
aiming to stick to lean proteins such as chicken and vegetables only (for
carbohydrates) throughout the day can help limit the fat storage effects
providing our calorie intake is suitable.
References
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