Drinking too much Alcohol

Drinking too much alcohol

1 jigger (11/2 oz) of alcohol contains:
120 cal (average of alcoholic beverages)

Alcohol has a variety of effects on the body. While being consumed, alcohol, as Shakespeare noted, “provokes the desire, but takes away the performance.” And a large part of the way you feel the morning after may be due to the effect alcohol has on your health balance. Since alcohol promotes the loss of all water-soluble nutrients, it can help bring on deficiencies, especially of B vitamins, potassium, and vitamin C, unless the body is unusually well-supplied. B-vitamin deficiencies are full of hangover attributes: nervousness and irritability, fatigue, aches and pains, loss of appetite, bloodshot, itching, burning eyes, shakiness, mental depression, and impaired thinking. In its longer range effects, drinking too much alcohol has been linked to cirrhosis of the liver, kidney damage, large-cell anemia, weakened resistance to infections and many illnesses, some forms of impotence, and prematurely gray hair. It can also irritate hay fever and increase stomach acid (and so should be avoided if you’re concerned about ulcers). And as if anything else were needed, alcohol changes to saturated fats, adding to the blood’s fat and cholesterol levels, which may promote atherosclerosis and most heart problems. If you drink on an empty stomach—when the blood fat level is already raised—it can really overload the circuits. Finally, if you’re on a weight-reduction diet, just look again at the calorie count and think about all that saturated fat.