Three Ways Alcohol Changes Your Body
Alcohol is often linked with a good time and a drink or two can certainly be part of a healthy lifestyle. But the line between moderation and “taking it too far” is fine. Before you go for a second (or third) round on your next night out, here are three ways alcohol changes your body that you may want to consider.
1. Dehydration
Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it makes your body lose more water than normal. Apart from the annoyance of constantly peeing, this makes alcohol a poor choice for your post sports game (or lawn mowing) chill-out. Any form of physical activity that raises our body temperature increases fluid loss through sweat. Adding alcohol to the mix further worsens this dehydrated state and more often than not, alcohol replaces water which is needed to rehydrate.
2. Altered fat metabolism
Because alcohol is a toxin, our bodies prioritise processing and eliminating it over other macronutrients, including fat. Metabolising alcohol is a pretty efficient process as it doesn’t require much energy. In the meantime, our body stops burning fat and starts storing it. With prolonged excessive drinking, alcohol becomes the main energy source for our bodies and fat continues to be stored, especially around our gut. This is where the term beer belly comes from!
3. Poor gut health
Speaking of our gut, too much alcohol can cause bacterial overgrowth and disrupt the balance between the good and bad bacteria. This isn’t ideal, as there is less of the good bacteria which which play a role in making substances called short-chain fatty-acids (that are linked to healthy levels of cholesterol and glucose in our blood) and the hormones serotonin and dopamine (which regulate our mood, digestion, appetite and sleep to name a few).
Australia recently revised our guidelines for safe alcohol intake, so make sure to check your understanding of what a standard drink looks like. And if you’re looking for a non-alcoholic alternative, we have got you covered with these two delicious mocktails.
