How does alcohol affect physiological processes in the body?

Have you ever wondered what happens to your body when you have a beer or a shot? What processes does alcohol trigger in the body? Let's see what alcohol affects in the body and what awaits you when it returns home from the summer garden.

Although alcohol may make you sleep better, the quality of your sleep will be worse. Why? This is because alcohol binds to the same places in the brain as the neurotransmitter GABA, which is responsible for relaxation and inducing well-being. Thanks to this, you will fall asleep faster after drinking alcohol, but the quality of your sleep will decrease. The ratio of REM sleep during the night, which optimally makes up 20-25% of the sleep cycle, will also decrease. It is a phase when the brain is very active, memories are sorted, emotions are processed. This also explains why you wake up more tired in the morning.

You probably know that alcohol contains empty calories. The amount varies from drink to drink. Alcohol also temporarily increases the appetite for sweet and fatty foods. It also affects hormones responsible for appetite, such as ghrelin and leptin. Leptin regulates the feeling of satiety, and ghrelin, on the other hand, tells the brain that the body is hungry. And that's why you may simply have more cravings for no apparent reason when consuming alcohol. If there is an imbalance between these hormones, they can affect changes in weight.

Which alcohol has the least calories? The winner is wine.
You will find the most sugar in various drinks with fruit juices. Watch out for you.

In addition to short-term nausea, alcohol also affects the overall intestinal microflora. It can thus cause not only digestive problems, but also depression and mood deterioration due to the confirmed gut-brain connection during prolonged use. During the breakdown of ethanol, substances are also created that overacidify the organism. A change in pH in the body can wreak havoc, especially when it comes to metabolic processes. The trio of minerals magnesium, zinc and selenium helps to raise the pH and easily copes with the problem.

Did you know that 400 times more information travels from the intestines to the brain than from the brain to the intestines?

Alcohol is the biggest burden on the liver, which is dedicated to the overall detoxification of the organism. This is done with the help of enzymes. But the liver can only process a small amount of alcohol at a time. Its excess then circulates throughout the body. So the decomposition process repeats itself until the body breaks down all the alcohol. This can take a few hours, or even a whole day. During this time, the body prefers to break down alcohol, as it tries to get rid of toxins as quickly as possible. So how to help the liver with regeneration after the party? It is useful to add antioxidants such as vitamin C and E, B complex, which supports detoxification, but also magnesium, omega 3 fatty acids and the previously mentioned selenium and zinc.

After four weeks without alcohol, fatty tissue in the liver is reduced by up to 20%.

We have already discussed the hormones leptin and ghrelin. But these are not the only hormones that alcohol affects. For example, alcohol can affect testosterone production both in the long term and in the short term. Even occasional drinking can disrupt testosterone production in men by negatively affecting the pituitary gland and hypothalamus. One study shows that testosterone can drop dramatically just 30 minutes after consumption. Another hormone that alcohol has a direct effect on is dopamine. Alcohol increases the production of dopamine and thus induces a feeling of happiness, joy, relaxation and slows down the flow of nerve impulses in the brain. This is why our judgment is a bit skewed when we drink.


And then there's the classic hangover, but I'll look into that next time. If you want to eliminate a hangover as much as possible, you can try our Hangover. In the e-shop, you will also find the supplements mentioned in the article, such as omega 3 , magnesium , liposomal vitamin C or Daily Essentials , thanks to which you will replenish all the necessary essential vitamins and minerals not only after a night of excess.