Nutrition and Alcohol

23 Jun

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Nutrition is a process that serves two purposes: to provide energy and to maintain body structure and function. Food supplies energy and provides the building blocks needed to replace worn or damaged cells and the nutritional components needed for body function. Alcoholics often eat poorly, limiting their supply of essential nutrients and affecting both energy supply and structure maintenance. Furthermore, alcohol interferes with the nutritional process by affecting digestion, storage, utilization, and excretion of nutrients

Alcoholic Beverage Nutrition Facts:

Alcoholic beverages tend to stimulate your appetite. Wine consists of smaller quantities of phytochemicals that tend to reduce your chances of developing heart disease and certain cancers. Genes play a major role in deciding as to how your body will process alcohol. Keep a check on the eatables that you consume while boozing, because that can lead to weight gain. Excess of anything is bad, so drink in limited quantities then be it beer, wine or spirits. Excessive drinking can cause hangover, leading to problems like nausea, vomit etc. Your body mechanism is like that it processes alcohol even before fats, proteins and carbohydrates and this tends to slow down fat burning process, thereby slowing your weight loss program.

Over consumption of alcohol may contribute to malnutrition by replacing foods needed for essential nutrients and by interfering with absorption, storage or metabolism of essential nutrients. Alcohol in moderation- health benefits, Calories in Alcohol- The calories obtained from drinking alcohol are considered to be “empty calories” because alcohol does not contain any beneficial nutrients, such as vitamin and minerals.

Excessive consumption of alcohol can lead to alcoholism which is defined by the National Council on alcoholism as that which is capable of producing pathological changes in the body. Alcohol Absorption- As alcohol is ingested, it is quickly absorbed through the walls of the stomach and small intestine and carried to the liver through the blood. The liver metabolizes alcohol at the rate of 1 oz per hour. Consumption of more than 1 oz per hour, alcohol becomes toxic. Excessive alcohol consumption is commonly associated with vitamin deficiency as it interferes with the livers capability of converting vitamins into their active form. Common vitamin deficiencies seen in alcoholism include; Vitamin A, folic Acid, Thiamin, Vitamin K, and some B Vitamins.

While the effects of alcohol-nutrition interactions can be seen at the organism level–in the consumer of alcohol as well as in the laboratory animal–the key to understanding them is to observe them at the subcellular level.

Health Issues:

High blood triglycerides, along with other risk factors, may increase the chance of developing heart disease. For those who drink alcohol, the liver produces more triglycerides that circulate in the blood.

Alcohol can damage the brain in many ways. The most serious effect is Korsakoff’s syndrome, characterized in part by an inability to remember recent events or to learn new information. For those who have diabetes, alcohol increases the risk for low blood sugar/hypoglycemic reactions. An association between alcohol consumption and an increased risk of breast cancer. The mechanism of this effect is not yet known, but the association may be due to carcinogenic actions of alcohol or its metabolites, to alcohol-induced changes in levels of hormones such as estrogens, or to some other process

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